Two men face each other in profile, standing on a grassy mound. The taller (left), who wears a laced suit and sword with a ruffled shirt, is James Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller whose 'Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, 1768-1773', appeared in 1790. The other is Williamson, an Edinburgh bookseller and tavern-keeper, who had published an account of his adventures in America: 'French and Indian Cruelty exemplified in the Life of Peter Williamson', 1757, &amp;c, and compiled the first Edinburgh directory (1773). Their words are engraved beneath the design:
<p><br>'[J. B.] How dare you approach me with your travells. There is not a single word of them true. [P. W.] There you may be right, and aliho I never dined upon the Lion or eat half a Cow and turned the rest to grass, yet my works have been of more use to mankind than yours and there is more truth in one page of my Edinh directory than in all your five Volumes 40. So when you talk to me dont imagine yourself at the Source of the Nile!' 1791
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<br>Etching with some stipple
1791<div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1791-00-00T00:00:00Z/9</div>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_J-4-339">https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_J-4-339</a>