9 
Christ Church. The African manuscript was taken to South 
Africa, and on the voyage out the index of this part was most 
kindly made by Dr. G. B. Longstaff, D.M., New College, and 
Dr. F. A. Dixey, D.M., Wadham College. 
A lecture on Burchell’s African Travels and Discoveries 
(1810-15) was delivered by the Professor at Cape Town on 
the evening of August 17. In the course of it the lecturer 
spoke of the unfortunate loss of the journals in which 
Burchell recorded a general account of his doings during 
the five years in Southern Africa and the five (1825-30) in 
Brazil. Burchell’s classical work, “Travels in the Interior of 
Southern Africa,” does indeed give a complete record between 
November 26, 1810, and August 3, 1812—the day on which 
he brought to a conclusion his first visit to Litakun, the 
capital of the Bachapins, in what is now British Bechuanaland. 
Mr. Mason, M.A., Merton College, Head Master of the Boys’ 
High School at Rondebosch, near Cape Town, who was 
present at the lecture, told the Professor that a former pupil 
of his, named Burchell, had brought to school a diary written 
by an ancestor in St. Helena. Through Mr. Mason’s kind 
help the Professor was put into communication with Mr. 
Francis A. Burchell, a grand-nephew of the great explorer, 
who searched, and ultimately found and most kindly lent 
a portion of the original African Journal written by W. J. 
Burchell in his ox-wagon. The manuscript, covering the 
period between May 24 and September 2, 1812, both days 
inclusive, occupies the whole of a small note-book bound 
in sheep-skin, and still in the most beautiful condition. 
At the place where Burchell’s second volume comes to an 
end, the words “ end of the and volume” are written in pencil 
in the margin. Beyond this point one month of the lost 
records are here restored to us, from August 3 to September 2, 
1812. Furthermore, even in the period covered by the 
published work there are many statements of the deepest 
interest to us which Burchell withheld. For the first time we 
are made acquainted with the day and month of his birth. It 
is believed—but there is no certainty—that he was born in 
