Introduction

While James Bruce was exploring in the Red Sea and in Ethiopia Captain James Cook was navigating the Endeavour in the South Pacific. The two expeditions would seem to have few similarities. Cook’s was a well-prepared scientific enterprise carried out by professionals and for which responsibility was shared by the Admiralty and the Royal Society. By contrast Bruce’s expedition was a private venture, without governmental or institutional backing, and financed solely from his own resources. The primary purpose of this book is to publish all the plant drawings Bruce brought out of Africa. Inseparable from this is the need to identify and proclaim their author, Luigi Balugani, a name hitherto virtually unknown as a botanical artist and consistently obscured by Bruce-whether from vanity or jealousy is not altogether clear. The book presents essays on Bruce's life and on the scientific and artistic value of his drawings.