A Scottish Laird becomes Lord of the Bedchamber in the Abyssinian/Ethiopian court and finds the source of the Nile.

Like many of his wealthy contemporaries in the 18th and 19th centuries, Lord James Bruce of Kinnaird made the grand tour of Europe (see the companion blog to this podcast).  Unlike many of them he also ventured further afield. For three years, from 1769 to 1772, the six-foot four Scottish laird with vivid red hair, travelled to Abyssinia, the old Ethiopian Empire comprising the northern half of present-day Ethiopia.  But his reasons for going are shrouded in mystery. Was he trying to find the source of the Nile or like an 18th century Indiana Jones, was he really searching for the Ark of the Covenant?

Our producer Antonia Dalivalle takes up the story….

Bruce arrived in the country at a time when Abyssinians weren’t exactly fans of Europeans.   A century earlier, the Emperor had kicked out the Portuguese Jesuits. They had pushed their luck and tried to convert the already-Christian Ethiopians to Catholicism.

After the last of the Portuguese fled with their tails between their legs, Abyssinia closed itself  off to outside influence – barricading itself against those they called the hyenas of the west.   Abyssinians paid each other to spread ‘fake news’ to foreigners about the journey into the interior– hoping they would turn around and go back the way they came. A common bluff was that a rampant warlord was blocking the road.

With a couple of exceptions, Bruce was pretty much the first European to set foot in the
country since the expulsion of the Jesuits. A notable exception was the seventeenth century  French doctor Jean-Baptiste Poncet, who exclaimed that the Abyssinian highlands, fragrant with flowers, reminded him of “The most beautiful part of Provence!”

Bruce surely achieved his passage to Gondar not only because of the liberal distribution of gifts - from gold to English pistols - but also because he was fluent in Ethiopian languages,  having studied them industriously before leaving Europe.

He arrived in Gondar on the occasion of an outbreak of smallpox. But this unfortunate
event had a silver lining for Bruce. Europeans before him had used medicine to get into the Abyssinian court. Luckily for Bruce, he had studied medicine in Arabia, and was able to lend a hand.

As a Protestant Scot, Bruce was in a position to forge a closer bond with the imperial family, who were anti-Catholic. At one point, Bruce placed his hand on a Bible, and explained to the Abyssinian Queen, the Iteghe,

“I declare to you, by all those truths contained in this book, that my religion is more different from the Catholic than yours is. There has been more blood shed between the Catholics and us, on account of the difference of religion, than ever was between you and the Catholics in this country."

In Abyssinia, royal and religious history are interwoven. If asked ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, Abyssinian Queens could justifiably say the Queen
of Sheba.  Abyssinian royalty traced their lineage back to the King of Kings, King Solomon.

Bruce was similarly insistent about his royal lineage. He commissioned the Bruce of
Kinnaird tartan to be woven from fourteen colours of yarn – twice the royal seven.  Bruce was the direct descendant of the fierce Scottish warrior-king, Robert the Bruce.

After a grueling interrogation from the teenage Emperor on the subject of England, he
became Lord of the Bedchamber. The Scottish laird was now an official member of the
glorious Gondarian court.  Fluent in Amharic and Ge’ez, with his hair curled and perfumed in the ‘Abyssinian fashion’, he was the most punctilious guest.

And Bruce said about the Emperor:
“Nor did I ever after see, in his countenance,