PKESENTATION 



OF THE 



ROYAL AWARDS 



To Captain R. F. BURTON and Captain JOHN PALLISER. 



The President read the following statements explanatory of the 

 grounds on which the Council had awarded the Eoyal Medals re- 

 spectively : — 



The Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society has been 

 adjudicated to Captain R. F. Burton, of the Bombay Army, who has 

 explored a vast region of Eastern and Central Africa never before 

 traversed by any geographer ; and for the discovery of the great in- 

 ternal lake of Tanganyika — the more northern lake of Nyanza being 

 discovered by his coadjutor, Captain Speke. 



Captain Burton is well known for his most interesting journey, 

 under the auspices of this Society, as an Afghan pilgrim, to the 

 Holy places in Arabia in the autumn of 1853, as recorded in our 

 Journal, vols. xxiv. and xxv., and in the popular account of it 

 published by himself. These volumes showed Captain Burton to 

 be an accomplished Orientalist, and admirably fitted for a traveller 

 among the difficulties of Eastern countries. 



In the ensuing year he volunteered to explore Eastern Africa 

 from Berbera to Zanzibar, accompanied by Lieutenant Stroyan and 

 Lieutenant Speke, the latter of whom had been for several years 

 collecting the fauna of Little Tibet and the Himalaya Mountains. 

 In a preliminary journey, Captain Burton, alone, succeeded in 

 reaching and describing Harar, never before visited by Europeans. 

 Lieutenant Speke, on his part, also alone, explored the interior of 

 the Somali country, made extensive collections and many observa- 

 tions, and produced a map of those tracts. The farther prosecution 

 of that expedition, when these officers were united with Stroyan 

 and Heme, was frustrated by an attack of the Somalis, in which 

 Lieutenant Stroyan was killed, and Lieutenants Burton and Speke 

 were both severely wounded. These occurrences are recorded in 



