"One of them still continued holding the head, while the other two were busied in curing the wound. This, too, was done not in the ordinary manner: the skin which had covered the flesh that was taken away was left entire, and flapped over the wound, and was fastened to the corresponding part by two or more small skewers or pins. Whether they put anything under the skin between that and the wounded flesh, I know not; but at the river-side where they were, they had prepared a cataplasm of clay, with which they covered the wound; they then forced the animal to rise, and drove it on before them, to furnish them with a fuller meal when they should meet their companions in the evening." It was upon this fact that Bruce's reputation split, and sunk like a vessel which had suddenly struck upon a rock. His best English friends had warned him of the danger, and earnestly begged him to suppress the publication of a story which, in his conversation, had been universally disbelieved; but, sorely as he felt the insult, even when privately received, it was against his nature to shrink from any unjust degradation which the public might attempt to inflict upon him. A man like Bruce, who had fearlessly looked real danger in the face, was not to be stopped in an honest course by threats of imaginary danger. He therefore unhesitatingly, or, as his friends termed it, "most obstinately," published the fact; and the following observations, with which he accompanied it, plainly show his wounded feelings and his undaunted integrity; his contempt of the world, or, rather, of the narrow-minded faction which opposed him; and his manly confidence that, sooner or later, truth would prevail.