514 sir james Alexander's African discoveries. 



The most important part of the communication with which we have been 

 honoured, is an intimation from Sir James (somewhat obscurely worded), 

 that he deems it necessary to give some public proof of his courage, for 

 which purpose he demands the name of the anonymous Reviewer. With 

 that true nobleness, and delicacy of feeling, which ought to be an inva- 

 riable attribute of knighthood, Sir James scorns to take advantage of 

 the Editor's name being openly placed on the wrapper of the journal 

 containing the offensive critique, and recollecting the motto, ' Palmam 

 qui meruit ferat, ' his indignation is solely directed towards the said 

 anonymous personage. We must, however, tell Sir James Alexander, 

 that in this matter we deem him to be altogether at fault. It will rea- 

 dily be supposed that we feel a proper sort of editorial affection for our es- 

 tablishment of reviewers, and that we do not hand them over to the tender 

 mercies of knight-errants and rhinoceros-shooters, without just and rea- 

 sonable cause should arise to warrant our so doing. Now, throughout 

 the article complained of, not the most distant suspicion is mooted of any 

 want of courage on the part of Sir James as it respects the genus Homo; 

 the " salutary dread " attributed to him, was of a race of gigantic Quad- 

 rumana, and which he expressly tells us are infinitely more to be feared 

 than the most savage of our own species. We therefore dispute altoge- 

 ther the validity of the grounds upon which Sir James would found his 

 challenge, since it is clear that no possible object would be gained if he 

 had the satisfaction of tickling' our reviewer with one of his ■ hard and 

 heavy bullets,' for the imputation, as it respects the baboons, would re- 

 main precisely as it now stands. 



If Sir James be in real earnest about setting himself right with the 

 public upon this point, the obvious course under the circumstances is for 

 him to despatch his attendant, Robert, with proper assistance, to the 

 Orange River, for the purpose of capturing and bringing alive to this 

 country, one of the I hairy monsters.' Sir James may then, in single 

 combat, have an opportunity of publicly displaying his prowess, and in 

 the event of his success, we should recommend him to add the skin of 

 his vanquished opponent to the collection of Quadrumana in the nation- 

 al Museum, or that of the Zoological Society. 



We have every reason for believing that in the event of the Geogra- 

 phical Society again availing themselves of Sir James Alexander's ser- 

 vices to superintend another African expedition of discovery, that he will 

 receive special instructions to make mention in his narrative of nothing 

 that he may hear, and only half of what he may see ; and we can assure 

 him that a volume coming before us, written under these circumstances, 

 would not give rise to a disparaging critique in the Magazine of Natural 

 History. 



