"WHALES!" 29 



how many noble men done to death ! We have 

 passed the northern boundary of the tropics. The 

 latitude is 18 ; and what memories does this locality 

 recall ? Poor Mungo Park ! Who is there that, 

 when a boy, has not read his writings, and, with 

 sorrowful heart, felt for his sufferings? And who 

 has not among his young admirers dropped a tear 

 when he came to the passage where the poor black 

 woman brought him food? for the solitary white man 

 had no friends. And again a little farther south, poor 

 Winwoode Eeade laboured, and farther on still Clapper- 

 ton, Denham, and Lander. Yes, Africa has taken many, 

 will still have more, and yet not be satisfied. That 

 west coast is a hard, cruel country to the Anglo-Saxon. 

 Could you navigate some of its bayous or creeks, thread 

 your passage through the intricate mangrove swamps, 

 see the giant hideous crocodile reposing on mud-banks 

 reeking with fever and miasma, you would at once say it 

 is no place for the white man. True, it is not ; and 

 although I once craved to be an explorer there, the task 

 must now pass to younger hands less able, certainly, to 

 be spared, and more capable of bearing the brunt. No, 

 no, not now, but to the radiant south I am bound 

 where the pellucid Zambesi, and no less clear Limpopo 

 push onward their way, and seek to mingle their waters 

 with the Indian Ocean. 



When unusually quiet on deck, and the heat had 

 made all more or less languid (I could not help thinking 

 in the foregoing strain, for Africa is no new land to 

 me, and I have carefully studied its history), and while 

 in this brown study, a cry of " Whales ! " was raised, 

 and all with one accord rushed to have a look at 

 the mammoth monsters of the deep. All the forenoon 



