748 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



who it is. We could not better ourselves by attempting to fly from this fatal 

 land ; for between us and the sea are seven hundred miles of as sickly a coun- 

 try as any in Africa. The prospect is fairer in front, though there are in that 

 direction some three thousand miles more to tramp. We have, however, new 

 and wonderful unknown tracts before us, whose marvels and mysteries shall 

 be a medicine which will make us laugh at fever and death. 



"Henry M. Stanley." 



The following communication from Captain George, the Curator of Maps 

 and Instruments to the Royal Geographical Society, concerning the height of 

 Lake Victoria Nyanza, as determined by Mr. Stanley, agrees so closely with 

 Captain Speke's result, that it must create a favourable impression on scientific 

 geographers : — " Height of Lake Victoria Nyanza — The great pleasure every 

 geographer will naturally take in the new discoveries of Mr. H. Stanley has 

 induced me at once to look into his observations for the height of the lake. 

 The readings of his instruments, though few, are very satisfactory. The 

 aneroids appear to have rather a large index error, but as it is not pre- 

 cisely given, they must stand over for the present. The boiling-point 

 observations, by two instruments of different makers, are to ' be preferred. 

 From the fact of Captain Speke and Mr. Stanley observing near the same 

 spot, and with the same class of instruments, their observations can fairly be 

 compared. The same method and tables have therefore been used for both 

 observers — viz., the Meteorological Tables by A. Guyot — with the following 

 results : — 



Captain Speke, on his map, gives.. 3,7-10 feet. 



Mr. Stanley's observations give 3,808 " 



Difference 68 " 



And this difference may be greatly reduced when the Kew verification has 

 been ascertained. 



C. Geoege, Staff Commander, R.N., Curator of Maps and 

 Instruments to the Royal Geographical Society." 



Referring to Stanley and his work, as it is recorded in the letters he has 

 sent home, the " Christian World" says : — " Mr. Stanley, the newspaper cor- 

 respondent who was at one time treated with such supreme contempt by a 

 section of learned society here in England, had, doubtless, certain features 

 pertaining to his character, as well as to his culture, which exposed him some- 

 what to the barbed shafts of scientific scorn. But the meeting with the 

 greatest of African travellers seems to have excited in his bosom a generous 

 ambition; and we suspect that the jealousy provoked among the savants by 



