TRAVELS IN ABYSSINIA. 
91 
be the Nile. To arrive at its source, which he 
supposed had never been visited by any European, 
had become, in preference to all others, the object 
of Mr Bruce's ambition. It was his thought by 
day, and his dream by night. Through immense 
hardships, and at the hazard of life, he accomplish- 
ed the favourite object. After all this, it cannot 
be a subject of wonder, scarcely even of blame, if 
his mind was not very open to the nice train of in- 
vestigation, by which D'Anville had proved, that 
the river visited by him had no claim to be consi- 
dered as the Nile. This, however, was an opinion, 
not a fact, and it cannot be wondered, that Mr 
Bruce should have a pretty strong bias upon one side. 
It would appear by a notice of Mr Pinkerton, that 
the historian and geographer, neither of whom were 
much in the habit of tolerating opposite opinions, met 
at Paris, and that a violent collision took place. Se- 
veral passages in Mr Bruce's writings bear traces 
of the profound indignation which he felt at this 
supposed attempt to rob him of his fame. It is re- 
markable, that he never makes the most distant al- 
lusion to the existence of any opinion different from 
his own ; which doubtless implies a certain degree 
of disingenuity. Yet the fact, that the Abiad, at 
the point of junction, is three times larger than the 
Azergue, is expressly stated in the printed text of 
his Travels, and it is one for which, so far as I 
know, we are exclusively indebted to him. There 
