James Bruce - His Claim

His Claim

The Jesuit missionary Pedro Paez is widely regarded by historians as having been the first European to reach the site; Bruce, however, disputed his claim and suggested that the relevant passage in Paez's memoirs had been fabricated by Athanasius Kircher. Later the source of the Blue Nile was visited by Fr. Jeronimo Lobo; Bruce sought to discredit the writings of Fr. Lobo, but more recent research has shown that Lobo's description of the source was perfectly correct in details. Bruce went as far as to claim (wrongly), that Lobo seemed to be able to sail on land and also denied the existence of a spitting cobra described by Lobo. The Greek Strates is arguably another European that reached the source of the Nile; however, in the eighteenth century, Greece was politically part of the Ottoman Empire, not Europe.