214 Life and Letters of Francis Gallon 



probably be first confined to London. There would be central offices, and from these 

 bundles of wires would radiate to numerous branch offices; from the branch offices 

 again wires would pass along the adjacent streets, and supply houses as they passed. 

 The expense of distributing wires in this way could not be extreme, for, if the branch 

 offices were as numerous as the branch post offices now are, the distance that the 

 wires to each private house would have to traverse would never be great" (p. 32). 



The perfect system of house to house telegraphy will probably 

 only be reached when we return to the recorded signal, to the true 

 telegraph, to the written instead of the spoken word. But in a large 

 measure Galton's anticipation of 1849 has been realised. Before, 

 however, the world could express any opinion on the value of his 

 teletype, the " spring-fret " had again seized him. Galton was off 

 for the " misty sweat bath 'neath the line," but this time with a 

 definite end to his travels the exploration of a little known tract 

 of Tropical Africa. When and how the idea of a journey of explora- 

 tion in Africa occurred to Francis Galton we cannot now ascertain ; 

 the reader will remember his boyish admiration for Captain Sayers 

 (see p. 113), which was doubtless not without permanent influence. 

 Oswell, Murray and Livingstone had just reached Lake Ngami, pro- 

 ceeding from the Cape, while ten years earlier Captain (later Sir) 

 James E. Alexander, starting also from the Cape, had twice tra- 

 versed the country of the Great Namaquas, and travelling almost 

 due east and west along Lat. 23 S. had linked Walfisch Bay with 

 the country of the Damaras of the Hills. North of 23 S. from 

 Walfisch Bay to Lake Ngami, of the land of the Damaras of the Plains 

 and of the Ovampos, but little was known; it was to this land that 

 Galton's attention was ultimately directed. Oswell and Livingstone 

 were already at work to the north of Lake Ngami, and there seems 

 little doubt that Galton for a considerable time had in mind the 

 linking up of the districts traversed by them with the West Coast. 

 But this was hardly his original project ; that appears to have been 

 to reach Lake Ngami from the Cape and then proceed northward 

 by means of the rivers flowing into that lake 1 . For this purpose his 

 equipment contained originally two boats which were discarded at the 

 Cape. Galton's friend, Dalyell, was acquainted with Sir Roderick 

 Murchison, at that time President of the Royal Geographical Society; 

 Galton's cousins Charles Darwin and Captain Douglas Galton were 



1 Colborne's Neiv Monthly Mnydzine, November 1850, p. 3.50. 



