PREFACE. 



ix 



nor an accurate astronomical observer. The Court of 

 Directors officially refused him leave of absence ; I ob- 

 tained it for him by an application to the local authori- 

 ties at Bombay. During the exploration he acted in a 

 subordinate capacity ; and as may be imagined amongst 

 a party of Arabs, Baloch, and Africans, whose languages 

 he ignored, he was unfit for any other but a subordinate 

 capacity. Can I then feel otherwise than indignant, 

 when I find that, after preceding me from Aden to 

 England, with the spontaneous offer, on his part, of not 

 appearing before the Society that originated the Expe- 

 dition until my return, he had lost no time in taking 

 measures to secure for himself the right of working the 

 field which I had opened, and that from that day he has 

 placed himself en evidence as the primum mobile of an 

 Expedition, in which he signed himself " surveyor," — 

 cujus pars minima fuit? 



With deference to the reader's judgment, I venture 

 to express a hope that whatever of unrefinement ap- 

 pears in these pages, may be charged to the subject. 

 It has been my duty to draw a Dutch picture, a cabaret- 

 piece which could not be stripped of its ordonnance, its 

 boors, its pipes, and its pots. I have shirked nothing 

 of the unpleasant task,— of recording processes and not 

 only results ; I have entered into the recital of the mala- 

 dies, the weary squabbles, and the vast variety of 

 petty troubles, without which the coup cVceil of African 

 adventure would be more like a Greek Saint in effigy- 

 all lights and no shade — than the chapter of accidents 

 which it now is. 



The map and the lists of stations, dates, &c., have 

 been drawn upon the plan adopted by Mr. Francis 



