24 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



had to be sent to India and the Cape for medical stores by the 

 Governor, who, himself acutely sensitive to human suffering, laboured 

 day and night in establishing local hospitals and appliances for the 

 relief of the sick, and in restoring confidence to the panic-stricken 

 people. The pestilence was followed by a hurricane of exceptional 

 violence, which wrecked the houses and plantations over a great part 

 of the island. 



In the Cape Colony Sir Henry's first duty was the establishment of 

 responsible government, in settling which he had to overcome the 

 deep-rooted jealousy of the colonists of the Eastern and Western 

 Provinces, who each claimed the right to the seat of Government. 

 This settled, the discovery of diamonds led to a complication of the 

 conflicting interests of the Boers, the native tribes, and the Orange 

 and Transvaal Free States, which resulted in the adoption of the 

 policy recommended by Sir Henry, namely to place the Vaal district 

 under British protection, and to annex Griqualand West. The rising 

 of Langalibalele and his people was the next source of trouble, 

 though it affected Natal more than the Cape Colony. All these 

 complications led to Sir Henry's turning his attention to a confedera- 

 tion of all the South African States and Colonies, towards which 

 he worked with characteristic energy and prudence ; but, though 

 favourable signs of progress in the right direction were not wanting, 

 the time had not come for its realization, and, to his bitter disappoint- 

 ment, Mr. Froude's mission shelved the whole subject. He returned 

 to England in 1877, when he retired upon his well-earned pension. 



During the whole period of Sir Henry's service, he not only actively 

 promoted (and in some cases originated) every scientific movement in 

 the colonies which he administered, but himself collected and observed 

 largely, sending living plants and herbarium specimens to Kew, and 

 fossils to the British Museum, with both which institutions he kept up 

 a continuous correspondence. To him is greatly due the enrichment 

 of the Botanical Gardens at Victoria, the appointment of Sir F. 

 Mueller as Government Botanist, and the undertaking by the Govern- 

 ments of four of the Australian Colonies of the ' Flora Australiensis.' 

 Aided by Lady Barkly, he explored the fern floras of Jamaica and 

 of Mauritius and its dependencies, and he contributed a very valuable 

 paper to our ' Transactions ' on the peculiar vegetation of Round 

 Island ; and another on its fauna, to the Royal Society of Mauritius. 



Sir H. Barkly was a man of varied accomplishments, tall and 

 spare in person, retiring in disposition, and urbane in manner, the 

 kindest of friends and most judicious of counsellors to young and old. 

 The most harassing duties never disturbed his equanimity, and he 

 was a true exponent of the motto he adopted "per ardua surgo. " He 

 married, in 1840, Elizabeth Helen, daughter of Capt. J. T. Timins, 

 of Hilfield, Herts, and secondly in 1860, Anne Maria, the only 



