164 iiEPORT— 1871. 



in dispevsino- the darkness that still hangs over some of the greatest featvires of 

 Central-African hydrography, by determining the ultimate course of the great 

 body of drainao-e which he has followed northward from 12° south latitude -whe- 

 ther towards the Congo and the Atlantic, or towards Baker's Lake and so to the 

 Nile,— as well as the kindred question of the discharge of Lake Tanganyika; but 

 of his proo^'ess in the solution of those questions we know nothing. I can but add 

 that Sir Roderick himself has lost none of his confidence in the accomplishment 

 of the task, and in the return of the great traveller at no distant period. That 

 conhdeuce of his has been so often before justified by the arrival of fresh news of 

 Livino-stone, however meagre, that we may well retain strong hope, even if it be 

 not granted to all of us to rise from hope into confidence. We trusty then, that 

 Livingstone wiU never have a place among the martyrs of geography. _ 



One addition, however, has been made during the past year to that long list, in 

 the name of the undaunted George Hayward, formerly a lieutenant in the 72nd 

 Regiment, who had for some years resolutely devoted himself to geographical dis- 

 covery. After having proved his powers in 'a journey to Yarkand and Kashghar, 

 which obtained for him last year one of the medals of the Geographical Society, 

 he had started again, with aid from that Society, to attempt an examination of the 

 famous Plateau of Pamir, hoping to succeed in crossing it, and to descend upon 

 the Russian territorv at Samarkand. In the Darkot Pass, above Yassin, he was 

 foully murdered by the emissaries of the chief of that district, Mir Wall by name. 

 Public suspicion in India first turned upon the Maharajah of Kashmir, on whose 

 alleged oppressions Hayward, in a private letter, had made severe remarks, which 

 were rashly published by the editor of a local newspaper. The latest intelligence 

 seems to exonerate the Maharajah and to throw the guilt of complicity rather on 

 the Mahomedan chief of Chitral. If he be the guilty man, it may be difiicult to 

 punish him, so inaccessible is his position at present ; for, to apply the old saw 

 of the Campbells, " It is a far cry to Chitral." I may observe, however, that some 

 sixteen or seventeen years ago a similar murder took place on the persons of two 

 poor French priests at the other extremity of India, and within the Thibetan 

 boundary on the Upper Brahmapootra, and the apprehension of the criminal must 

 have seemed almost as hopeless as in this case. Yet eventually he fell into^ the 

 hands of our oncers of the province of Asam, and paid the due penalty of his crime. 

 One book recently issued by the India Office I wish to bring to notice in a 

 very few words. I mean Mr. Markham's ' Memoir on the Indian Surveys.' Of 

 this work, excellent in object and in execution, a pretty full account will be found 

 in Sir R. Murchison's Address; my object is merely to say how encouraging I 

 believe a work like this is lilcely to prove to those who are employed on such 

 duties as the memoir treats of; for they will see that here are recorded with hearty 

 appreciation, in a book that will be largely read and permanently referred to, the 

 labours, alw.ays toilsome, often perilous, often fatal, of a great number of zealous 

 servants of the State, the memory of whose merits would in many cases, but for 

 this book, have been left to decay amid the dust of the India Office. The prepara- 

 tion of such a work shows a spirit which has been too often missing in our admi- 

 nistrators, and is honourable, not only to the author, but to the Department which 

 has promoted and authorized its publication. 



Within the last few days my attention has been drawn to some maps which have 

 been recently issued by the Forest Department of India, showing the geographical 

 distribution of teak and other valuable woods in that country. I regret to learn 

 that the Forest-management in India is looked upon, by some of those statesmen 

 who are now interesting themselves in Indian details, too much as regards its mere 

 results in revenue. But the conservation, and, if possible, the recovery, of forests 

 of valuable timber is a work which the State alone can touch, and which is of the 

 highest importance, quite apart from immediate returns in revenue. There were, 

 I know, some years ago, and no doubt still are, such forest-tracts, where the 

 only hope of recovery lay in their entire closure ; and from these, of course, 

 there could be no revenue. During many years of railway construction in India 

 the waste of valuable timber, an article now comparatively rare and costly in 

 that country, and for which in many of its purposes there is no substitute, was 

 lamentable and probably irreparable ! The teak timbers that bind the walls of 



