PREFACE. 
In offering to the public the following pages, I feel, 
as editor, that I owe a few words of apology and 
explanation to the reader by way of preface — 
apology for the imperfections of the volume ; ex- 
planation how such imperfections have arisen. 
The traveller whose journey to the Zambesi is here 
recounted died of fever a few days after he had left 
that river on his way homewards, and the book has 
been compiled from his note-books, and letters home. 
The latter were written with no view of publication ; 
the former were intended only for the writer's own 
subsequent use and as suggestive guides to me^mory. 
It is always a question in such a case how far the 
surviving friends of the deceased writer or traveller 
do well in publishing the unfinished labour of his 
pen. What his own wish would have been cannot 
be known, or even guessed at, unless specially 
expressed ; and the reflection forcibly presents itself 
to the mind that perhaps a certain injustice may be 
