Although the least considerable of your MAJESTY‘s subjects, yet not the least desirous of proving my duty by promoting your MAJESTY‘s declared plan of discovery as much as the weak endeavours of a single person could, unprotected, forlorn, and alone, or at times associated to beggars and banditti, as they offered, I undertook this desperate journey, and did not turn an ell out of my proposed way till I had completed it: It was the first discovery attempted in Your MAJESTY‘s reign. From Egypt I penetrated into this country, through Arabia on one side, passing through melancholy and dreary deserts, ventilated with poisonous winds, and glowing with eternal sun-beams, whose names are as unknown in geography as are those of the antediluvian world. In the six years employed in this survey I described a circumference whose greater axis comprehended twenty-two degrees of the meridian, in which dreadful circle was contained all that is terrible to the feelings, prejudicial to the health, or fatal to the life of man. In laying the account of these Travels at Your MAJESTY‘s feet, I humbly hope I have shewn to the world of what value the efforts of every individual of Your MAJESTY‘s subjects may be; that numbers are not always necessary to the performance of great and brilliant actions, and that no difficulties or dangers are unsurmountable to a heart warm with affection and duty to his Sovereign, jealous of the honour of his master, and devoted to the glory of his country, now, under Your MAJESTY‘s wise, merciful, and just reign, deservedly looked up to as Queen, of Nations. I am, SIR, YOUR MAJESTY’s Most faithful Subject, And most dutiful Servant, JAMES BRUCE. INTRODUCTION. However little the reader may be conversant with ancient histories, in all probability he will know, or have heard this much in general, that the attempt to reach the Source of the Nile, the principal subject of this publication, from very early ages interested all scientific nations: Nor was this great object _feebly_ prosecuted, as men, the first for wisdom, for learning, and spirit (a most necessary qualification in this undertaking) very earnestly interested themselves about the discovery of the sources of this famous river, till disappointment followed disappointment so fast, and consequences produced other consequences so fatal, that the design was entirely given over, as having, upon the fairest trials, appeared impracticable. Even conquerors at the head of immense armies, who had first discovered and then subdued great part of the world, were forced to lower their tone here, and dared scarcely to extend their advances toward this discovery, beyond the limits of bare wishes. At length, if it was not forgot, it was however totally abandoned from the causes above mentioned, and with it all further topographical inquiries in that quarter.