30 J Aft' and Lettn'x of Francis Gal ton 



Galton's presidency of Section K at Brigliton was marked by the readintf 

 of a paper by Stanley concerning his Congo travels. The ex-Eniperor 

 Napoleon and the Empress Eugenie wei*e present, and it was feared Stanley 

 might use the txjc^uiion in an inappropriate way'. The int»eting pjisaed off, 

 however, with only one interference on the President's part, hut with some 

 tension. For those who would realise (ralton's strong feehngs about Stanley's 

 pn>ceedings the following extract from an article — really hy Galton — in the 

 EJinbunjIt Review for January 1878 (pp. 1G6 S)l) will \ni indicative. 



"The exploration of Africa has b«en conducted of late on a new system. Tlie routes of the 

 earlier travelU-rs {mi.s.s(><I pither thrmijili parts of the continent where the {lopulation is spnr.se, 

 •8 in Caffre-land or in the fSaliara, or in those wliere it is organised into large kingdoms, such 

 as lie between Ashanti and Wadai, and which are much too jx)werful to admit of any traveller 

 forcing his way against the will of their rulers. The older explorers were therefore content to 

 travel with small retinues, conciliating the natives of the larger kingdoms by patient pereistence 

 and feeling their way. But of recent years all this has been changed. The progress of discovery 

 has transferre*! the outpost-s of knowledge and the starting-points of exploration to places where 

 the population is far more abundant than that which i.s met with in either the northern or the 

 southern portions of Africa, yet where it is for the most part divided into tribes. Hence modem 

 explorers have found the necessity for travelling with large and strongly armed retinues. This 

 new method has been fre(|uently adopted in the upper basin of tlie WliiU' Nile, which has been 

 the scene of many militHry expeditions sent by the Egyptian Government to force a way into 

 the Soudan, including that commanded by Sir Siiinuel Baker. So, in the south, Livingstone's 

 comparativelj' small liand of determined Caffres, placed at his disposal by a chief whose con- 

 fidence he had gained, enabled him to cross the Continent in the latitude of the Zaml)e8i. Sub- 

 sequently other travellers like Burton, Speke, Grant and Cameron, starting from Zanzilmr, 

 have adopted a similar plan. Their forces were large enough to enable them to pass as they 

 pleased through regions where the tribes were small, they were sufficiently powerful to make 

 larger tribes fear to attack them, and as they invariabi)' ado|)te<l a conciliatory policy with the 

 latter, they never came into serious collision with the natives. Mr Stanley has adopted the 

 plan of travelling with an amied retinue on a much larger scale than any of those we have 

 named, and he has certainly carried, by these means, a great expjxiition successfully through 



these maps should he sold in all important towns and, if possible, at the .several post-ofl5ct;s, and 

 that -Mr F. Galton Ix; the Secretarj'." Mr Ayrtoii, the minister under whose control the Ordnance 

 Survey Office was, saw the deputation but it is not very clear that any definite impression was 

 made on him. On the other hand, Major-General Sir Henry James, Superintendent of the 

 Ordnance Survey Office, wrote a number of appreciative letters, and ma^is were prepared in 

 accordance with Galton's suggestions. James writes: "As to the difficulty of getting our maps 

 it arises from the fact that we have. four agents onlj* for England and Wales instead of at least 

 250 or one in every tolerably sized town, and these agents are all in London and nyieive .33)^ 

 per cent, instead of 25 per cent. But few and dear as the agents are, they seem Uj have been 

 selected liecause they are thems«'lves map-makers and sellers, and sell to the public bad copies 

 of the ordnance maps taken by robb«>ry! This was done against my earnest prot*«t and the 

 Oovemment is losing some £3000 a year by the arrangement, and the public are everywhere 

 dissatisfied. " Henrj' Fawcett wrot«' a sympathetic letter and regretted that the matter had not 

 alto been brought before the Committee of Section F, of which he was a memlier. 



Galton's index map, however, is now a commonplace of many map publications. 



' "Mr Stanley had other interests than geography. He was essentially a journalist aiming 

 at producing s<*nHational articles." Afemorie*, p. 207. What vexed Galton peculiarly was that 

 Otenkty had made no proper positional obs«Tvation.s, and (ialton ventured to utter the words 

 ••aenaational geography. " Stanley in his letters used violent language aljout the Koyal (Jeog. 

 Society, and about Slarkham and Galton. He was no doubt excit«Ml by the inquiries as to his 

 btrtb, from which that Society had not and could not entirely disa.ssociate itself. He did not 

 meet that question straightforwardly and fearlessly as he might well have done. (Ijnttera of 

 Stanley and others in Gdlloniana.) 



