INTRODUCTION. Ixxis 



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. Pie 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 m ith a con- 

 stant short, dry cough, (juick 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 his uniform 

 of a yeomanry officer would afford him much facility in 

 travelling in the peninsula, he was induced to go into Spain; 

 and the leu 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 foreis'i travel, that althouo;h 

 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 one of 

 his early friends, had got the appointment, he immediately 

 wrote to entreat he might be allowed to accompany him as a 

 volunteer. It was in vain to represent how inconveniently he 

 must be accommodated ; and that he could not be allowed 



