xiv MEMOIR. 
his death in the full prime of manhood, witnessed 
the arrival at his English home of his large collec- 
tions of natural history specimens, brought from 
the interior of South Africa by the devoted service 
of a friend, realized strangely how the boy's ambi- 
tion had been fulfilled in after life, and felt that, 
though cut off in the very perfection of his powers, the 
purpose of his being had not wholly failed. Those 
even who knew him best were surprised indeed, 
when these evidences of his work abroad arrived, to 
see how much he had accomplished in the brief 
period — a little short of two years— of his absence. 
As, one after another, the packing-cases were opened, 
each in its turn afforded to the looker-on some fresh 
illustration of the untiring determination of the 
deceased traveller to make the very utmost of his 
opportunities whilst abroad. The voice that could 
alone have told the story of those collections, the 
hand that had brought them thus together, were 
silent and still in a far distant grave ; but an utter- 
ance — the more pathetic because it was inaudible — 
seemed to go forth, unbidden, from those speechless 
records of devoted work and enterprise, and tell the 
secret tale of a life in earnest sympathy with nature 
curtailed, — the hand, as it were, yet warm from its 
labours. 
There, on the one hand, lay the opened cases of 
rare and brilliant bird-skins, each specimen with its 
