12 INTRODUCTION. 



down the geographical positions, having failed to answer 

 the expectations formed of him, these duties fell chiefly to 

 my share. They involved a considerable amount of night 

 work, in which I was always cheerfully aided by my com- 

 panions, and the results were regularly communicated to our 

 warm and ever-ready friend, Sir Thomas Maclear of the 

 Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope. While this work 

 was going through the press, Ave were favoured with the 

 longitudes of several stations determined from observed 

 occultations of stars by the moon, and from eclipses and 

 reappearances of Jupiter's satellites, by Mr. Mann, the able 

 Assistant to the Cape Astronomer Eoyal ; the lunars are still 

 in the hands of Mr. G. W. H. Maclear of the same Observa- 

 tory. In addition to these, the altitudes, variation of the 

 compass, latitudes and longitudes, as calculated on the 

 spot, appear in the map by Mr. Arrowsmith, and it is 

 hoped may not differ much from the results of the same 

 data in abler hands. The office of "skipper," which, 

 rather than let the Expedition come to a stand, I under- 

 took, required no great ability in one " not too old to 

 learn : " it saved a salary, and, what was much more valu- 

 able than gold, saved the Expedition from the drawback 

 of any one thinking that he was indispensable to its further 

 progress. The office required attention to the vessel both at 

 rest and in motion. It also involved considerable exposure 

 to the sun; and to my regret kept me from much antici- 

 pated intercourse with the natives, and the formation of 

 full vocabularies of their dialects. 



I may add that all wearisome repetitions are as much 

 as possible avoided in the narrative; and, our movements 

 and operations having previously been given in a series of 

 despatches, the attempt is now made to give as fairly as 



