682 LIFE OF DA YID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



Greenwich authorities to add, for judicious selection and accuracy of result — 

 may favourably compare with the finished work of a professional survey. 

 We feel, therefore, that we may fairly hold you up as a model to future tra- 

 vellers, trusting, indeed, that geographical science may as largely profit by 

 the example which you have set to others as by the results which you have 

 yourself contributed. You have already received at the hands of your Sove- 

 reign, as a reward for your brilliant achievement, the distinction of Companion- 

 ship of the Bath — which I believe was never bestowed on so young an officer 

 in Her Majesty's naval service. You are also daily receiving proofs of the 

 interest that your discoveries have excited among the public at large, owing 

 to the practical benefits which the nation may expect to derive from them, 

 both in regard to its commerce, and especially in regard to that object it has 

 so much at heart — the suppression of the African slave trade ; and I am now 

 to offer you, in the name of geographical science, the highest honour we can 

 confer — the founder's medal of the year. And in congratulating you on thus 

 taking your place on the golden roll of the Geographical Society's medallists, 

 may I be permitted to add, that having presided on five occasions at the dis- 

 tribution of our annual awards, it has never been my fortune to present the 

 medal to one who, by his services, has more thoroughly earned it." 



Lieutenant Cameron, in reply, said — " Sir Henry Rawlinson, I beg to 

 thank you most heartily for the medal. It has been the one great hope that 

 has sustained me throughout my travels, of aiding, in some degree, the ob- 

 jects of the Royal Geographical Society. I knew very well that I was not 

 in Africa to play, but to take observations ; and the training that I received 

 in the service to which I am proud to belong taught me how to accomplish 

 this. I am glad to find my observations have been appreciated, and that 

 they are considered accurate and good. I beg to thank you for the honour 

 that you have done me." 



In the course of his annual address, Sir Henry said — " In Africa — and 

 especially in Equatorial Africa — has been centred the chief geographical 

 interest of the year. When I delivered my last anniversary address to you 

 in this hall, I drew your attention to the grave — not to say perilous position 

 of the two adventurous travellers, Mr. Stanley and Lieutenant Cameron, of 

 whom nothing had been heard for many months, but who were believed to be 

 pushing their way into regions of the most inaccessible and inhospitable cha- 

 racter. With regard to Lieutenant Cameron, I may now confess that I felt 

 more anxiety than I cared to express, knowing, as I did, that he was trying 

 to force a passage through the savage tribes who line the lower course of the 

 Congo, and feeling assured that he would persist in his attempt to reach the 

 western sea-coast, appalled by no dangers, recoiling before no difficulties. 

 Mr. Stanley's temporary disappearance did not excite the same amount of 

 uneasiness, since his track lay in a less remote portion of the continent, and 



