BRUCE HIS AUTHENTICITY. QS 
duct of the Abyssinian ladies, but not those open 
indecencies which are described by Bruce. It is 
observable, however, that the present Ras, ac- 
cording to Mr Salt's statements, entertains views 
upon this subject quite uncommon in Abyssinia, 
and exacts a degree of outward decorum to which 
the court had never before been accustomed. Mr 
Bruce, on the contrary, saw it in a state of pecu- 
liar license, so that an actual variation in the state- 
of manners at these different periods is exceed- 
ingly probable. The other contradictions are 
trifling, and, except the jeu (T esprit about the 
eclipse at Teawa, rest on rather defective evi- 
dence. 
The charges connected with Mr Bruce having 
referred the head of the Egyptian Nile to the 
river of Abyssinia, instead of the larger stream 
of the Bahr el Abiad, appear to have still less 
foundation. When that traveller left Europe, all 
modern geographers and travellers, without a 
single exception, had considered the Abyssinian 
river to 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 
accomplished the favourite object. After all this 
it cannot be a subject of wonder, scarcely even 
