678 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



ing journals made the following observations : — " On Saturday afternoon the 

 freedom of the City of London was presented to Lieutenant Cameron by the 

 Ancient and Honourable Guild of Turners. The occasion was one of more 

 than usual interest. The Turners are among the City Companies what Baliol 

 was for many years among the Oxford Colleges. They boast no gorgeous 

 hall or colossal rent-roll ; they do not confine themselves to the giving of 

 banquets ; they actually contrive to spend a reasonable portion of their slen- 

 der corporate income upon the encouragement of technical education ; and, 

 lastly, they exercise discrimination in the selection of candidates for the roll 

 of their Livery. Lieutenant Cameron is emphatically one of those men to 

 whom honour of some kind is pre-eminently due. He who has tramped across 

 Central Africa from sea to sea deserves well of the State, even though his 

 labours may not have added greatly to our existing stock of geographical 

 knowledge. 



"It is an oversight little short of a national misfortune that we have in 

 England no adequate honorary rewards for any achievements save those of 

 statesmanship, diplomacy, and war. The want, which undoubtedly exists, 

 of some national ' Legion of Honour,' for admission to which high merit of 

 any kind shall be sufficient passport, is at present vicariously supplied, partly 

 by the honorary degrees conferred by the two sister Universities, and partly 

 by the liberal, and, if we may say so, cosmopolitan spirit in which the City 

 Companies, or the best-managed amongst them, have distributed their fran- 

 chise. In the present instance, Mr. Past Master Jones, who fulfilled the post 

 alloted at Oxford to that eminent functionary, the Public Orator, introduced 

 Lieutenant Cameron to the Turners in conclave assembled, not, perhaps, as 

 ' Qui unus optime de Republica meritus, terram adhuc incognitam penitus 

 perlustravit ' — which is about the style of Patavinity in which the Public 

 Orator for the time being is apt to indulge upon such occasions — but, more 

 simply, as ' a gallant gentleman who had done a good work.' What this good 

 work is, the public already knows, and it is only fair to say that Past Master 

 Jones, in dwelling upon the results of Lieutenant Cameron's exploits, showed 

 himself fully sensible of their real value and importance. 



" The gallant officer has not, it is true, exactly solved for us the vexed 

 problem of the sources of the great African rivers, and of their connection 

 with the grand system of inland seas in which they take their rise. Neither 

 has he much that is new to tell us of the mysterious land which he has tra- 

 versed — of its inhabitants and their customs, of its fauna and flora, and of its 

 mineral products. The true importance of his achievement lies in the fact 

 that he has shown it to be possible for an Englishman, siDgle-handed, and to 

 all intents and purposes unarmed, to explore this vast and wonderful conti- 

 nent in comparative safety ; and by doing this, he has set an example which 

 cannot but give a most powerful impulse to future discovery and research. It 



