INTRODUCTION. Ixxix’ 
and he escaped from it whenever he could with propriety 
do so, to indulge his zeal for scientific research, and. to 
cultivate his taste for music, of which he was passionately 
fond, and in which he excelled. He availed himself of 
all opportunities to acquire a practical knowledge of 
botany, and was particularly conversant in all the new 
discoveries in chemistry, which, with geology, were his 
favourite studies. He was soon however drawn from his 
retired and studious habits to seek for health in the south 
of Europe, having suffered for several months by an op- 
pression and pain in the chest, accompanied with a con- 
stant short, dry cough, quick pulse, and all the symptoms 
of a confirmed consumption ; from all which however he 
was completely cured before he landed in Lisbon, after a 
tempestuous and protracted passage in the winter of 1813. 
Finding himself so well, and conceiving that bis uniform 
of a yeomanry officer would afford him much facility in 
travelling in the peninsula, he was induced to go into Spain; 
and the few months he spent in visiting various parts of 
this country, and the delight experienced by a mind finely 
stored like his with diversified knowledge, inspired him 
with so enthusiastic a zeal for foreign travel, that although 
on his return to Ireland, he re-assumed his station in the 
bank, it was evident that an opportunity only was want- 
ing to set him out again on his travels. That opportunity 
soon occurred by the ill-fated expedition to explore the 
Zaire. On hearing that Captain Tuckey, who was cone of 
his early friends, had got the appointment, he immediately 
wrote to entreathe might be allowed to accompany himas a 
volunteer. It was in vain to represent how inconveniently he 
must be accommodated; and that he could not be allowed 
