xx MEMOIR. 



great part yet unread ; and those who, after his 

 death in the full prime of manhood, witnessed the 

 arrival at his English home of his large collec- 

 tions of natural history specimens, brought from 

 the interior of South Africa by the devoted service 

 of a friend, realized strangely how the boy's ambi- 

 tion had been fulfilled in after life, and felt that, 

 though cut off in the very perfection of his powers, the 

 purpose of his being had not wholly failed. Those 

 even who knew him best were surprised indeed, 

 when these evidences of his work abroad arrived, to 

 see how much he had accomplished in the brief 

 period — a little short of two years — of his absence. 

 As, one after another, the packing-cases were opened, 

 each in its turn afforded to the looker-on some fresh 

 illustration of the untiring determination of the 

 deceased traveller to make the very utmost of his 

 opportunities whilst abroad. The voice that could 

 alone have told the story of those collections, the 

 hand that had brought them thus together, were 

 silent and still in a far distant grave ; but an utter- 

 ance — the more pathetic because it was inaudible — 

 seemed to go forth, unbidden, from those speechless 

 records of devoted work and enterprise, and tell the 

 secret tale of a life in earnest sympathy with nature 

 curtailed — the hand, as it were, yet warm from its 

 labours. 



There, on the one hand, lay the opened cases of 



