PREFACE. 



When honoured with a special meeting of welcome by the Royal 

 Geographical Society, a few clays after my arrival in London 

 in December last, Sir Eoderick 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 publicly 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 nar- 

 rative* has taken much longer time than, from my inexpe- 

 rience in authorship, I had anticipated. 



Greater smoothness of diction, and a saving of time, might 

 have been secured by the employment of a person accustomed 

 to compilation ; but my journals having been kept for my own 

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

 have entered 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 cannot refrain from referring, with sentiments of admiration 

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

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

 remember his instructions and help with real gratitude. The 

 intercourse 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 overstocked with accomplished members of that 

 profession. Let them be always honoured according to then 

 deserts; and long may Maclear, 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, 

 spurious narratives of my travels, I beg to tender my thanks to the Editors 

 of the Times and of the Athenaeum for aiding to expose them, and to the 

 booksellers of London for refusing to subscribe for any copies. 



