TRAVEI S OF JAMES BRUCE the last of him, but subsequently word came that he intended to visit the boat once again to bid the travellers farewell ; he was prevented from doing this by hints that personal violence might be done to him if he came, but to the last he was equal to the occasion, for he sent word to Captain Norden that his wife had just been delivered, and asked for a present for the child ! This he was given, and then the boat was loosed from her moorings, and the journey down stream began ; in six days the port of Morrada, immediately above the First Cataract, was reached, and Captain Norden remarks quaintly that as they passed the various places on the river the people were everywhere surprised to find that the travellers were still alive, and that they had escaped out of the hands of the governor of Derr. From the above facts it is clear that in the first half of the eighteenth century the country between the First and Second Cataracts was in a very troubled state, that the Sultan in Constantinople had no real hold over the country, and that travellers who insisted on penetrating the upper parts of the Nile Valley did so at great risk. At this period it was extremely difficult to obtain provisions anywhere above Aswan, for the people possessed very few sheep, goats or chickens ; the narrow strips of cultivable land on the river bank did not produce grain sufficient for the needs of the people, and the natives never ground more dhurra than they needed for their immediate use. This description of the country is not a pleasing one, but had it been written in 1885 instead of 1737 it would have been equally true.

Most prominent and most important of all the travellers in the S<jdan during the eighteenth century is James Bruce, who was born at Kinnaird, in the county of Stirling, Scotland, on December 14th, 1730. He was the younger son of David Bruce by his wife Marion, daughter of James Graham, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, and Judge of the High Court of Admiralty in Scotland.

He entered Harrow School on January 21st, 1742, and left it on May 8th, 1746. At Harrow he acquired a competent knowledge of the classics, and after his departure from the school he studied French, arithmetic and geometry, under Mr. Gordon, until April, 1747. In the same year he began to study law in the University of Edinburgh, but he made little progress. On February 3rd, VOL. I. 17 c