Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/40

 religion had partly survived the ordinances of a new and purer worship for many centuries. It was early in the afternoon of November 3d, that Bruce surmounted a ridge of hills which separated him from the fountain of the Nile, and for the first time cast his European eyes upon that object—the first, and, we believe, the only European eyes that have ever beheld it. It was pointed out to him by Woldo, his guide, as a hillock of green sod in the middle of a marshy spot at the bottom of the hill on which he was standing. To quote his own account of so remarkable a point in his life—"Half undressed as I was, by the loss of my sash, and throwing off my shoes, [a necessary preliminary, to satisfy the Pagan feelings of the people], I ran down the hill, towards the hillock of green sod, which was about two hundred yards distant; the whole side of the hill was thick grown with flowers, the large bulbous roots of which appearing above the surface of the ground, and their skins coining off on my treading upon them, occasioned me two very severe falls before I reached the brink of the marsh. I after this came to the altar of green turf, which was apparently the work of art, and I stood in rapture above the principal fountain, which rises in the middle of it. It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment—standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and enquiry of both ancients and moderns for the course of near three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of armies, and each expedition was distinguished from the last only by the difference of numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly and without exception followed them all. Fame, riches, and honour had been held out for a series of ages to every individual of those myriads these princes commanded, without having produced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity of his sovereign, or wiping off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind, cr adding this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here, in my own mind, over kings and their armies! and every comparison was leading nearer and nearer to presumption, when the place itself where I stood, the object of my vain glory, suggested what depressed my short-lived triumph. I was but a few minutes arrived at the sources of the Nile, through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me, but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence: I was, however, but then half through my journey, and all those dangers through which I had already passed awaited me on my return;—I found a despondency gaining ground fast, and blasting the crown of laurels which I had too rashly woven for myself." In this paragraph—one of the most deeply touching ever written—we find the Herculean mind of Bruce giving way, under the influence of success, to sensations which had scarcely ever affected him during the whole course of his journey, while as yet the desire of going onward, and the necessity of providing the means of doing so with safety, possessed and amused his mind. Nothing could be more characteristic of a great mind—by danger and hardship only braced to more nervous exertion—by opposition only rendered the more eager and firm—by the menaces of inferior minds only roused to contemptuous defiance; and only to be softened by kindness, only to be subdued by success. Many other emotions, however, must have entered the breast of the traveller in that remarkable hour of his life. All the inspiring causes of his journey must have rushed full upon him—the desire of overcoming a difficulty which had defied the civilized part of the earth since ever it was civilized the hope of doing that which Alexander, and many of the greatest men of antiquity had wished, but failed to do the curiosity of rendering that a matter of real and human exertion which an ancient poet could only suppose possible to a supernatural being on an extraordinary occasion: