PREFACE. 



When honored with a special meeting of welcome by the Royal 

 Geographical Society a few days after my arrival in London in 

 December last, Sir Roderick Murchison, the President, invited me 

 to give to the world a narrative of my travels ; and at a similar 

 meeting of the Directors of the London Missionary Society I pub- 

 licly stated my intention of sending a book to the press, instead 

 of making many of those public appearances which were urged 

 upon me. The preparation of this narrative* has taken much 

 longer time than, from my inexperience in authorship, I had an- 

 ticipated. 



Greater smoothness of diction and a saving of time might have 

 been secured by the employment of a person accustomed to com- 

 pilation ; but my journals having been kept for my own private 

 purposes, no one else could have made use of them, or have en- 

 tered with intelligence into the circumstances in which I was placed 

 in Africa, far from any European companion. Those who have 

 never carried a book through the press can form no idea of the 

 amount of toil it involves. The process has increased my respect 

 for authors and authoresses a thousand-fold. 



I can not refrain from referring, with sentiments of admiration 

 and gratitude, to my friend Thomas Maclear, Esq., the accom- 

 plished Astronomer Royal at the Cape. I shall never cease to 

 remember his instructions and help with real gratitude. The in- 

 tercourse I had the privilege to enjoy at the Observatory enabled 

 me to form an idea of the almost infinite variety of acquirements 

 necessary to form a true and great astronomer, and I was led to 

 the conviction that it will be long before the world becomes over- 

 stocked with accomplished members of that profession. Let them 

 be always honored according to their deserts ; and long may Mac- 

 lear, Herschel, Airy, and others live to make known the wonders 

 and glory of creation, and to aid in rendering the pathway of the 

 world safe to mariners, and the dark places of the earth open to 

 Christians ! 



* Several attempts having been made to impose upon the public, as mine, spuri- 

 ous narratives of my travels, I beg to tender my thanks to the editors of the Times 

 and of the Athenozum for aiding to expose them, and to the booksellers of London 

 for refusing to subscribe for any copies. 



