THL KING OF MUSEUM-BUILDERS. 
158 
idertiiists, and in all its"work ahpays received 
from Mni hearty sympauSfy , as well aa active 
snpiK)rt and coSperation. jl* is tny firm con- 
viction that no man livif^n^s done a8 much 
toward the promotion of the ai*t of taxidermy 
as has been done by Henry A. Ward and the 
influences created by him. He is no taxider- 
mist himself, and never was ; but he knew 
how to promote the production of fine work, 
and he believed in quality rather quan- 
tity. 
Of all the travelers I have ever known, aye, 
or ever heard of, Professor "Ward is the most 
persistent, and I may still say, unsatisfied. It 
is true, the needs of the establishment require 
that some one should be very much "on the 
road," not only in keeping up the supply of 
good, salable collections, but also in keep- 
ing in touch with the museum men of 
the world, and selling them collections. I, 
too, love to travel : but it makes me feel 
both tired and homesick to think of all the 
trips abroad he has taken. There is hardly 
a nook or corner in the United Slates that he 
has not been to or through, and the same is 
true of Europe. Egypt, Nubia, Arabia and 
Somaliland are merely nice winter play- 
grounds for him, and Zanzibar, Abyssinia. Mo- 
zambique. Zululand, Natal, Cape Colony and 
Griqualand. 800 miles in the interior of South 
Africa, have all been ransacked by him for 
specimens. Bo also with Japan, Australia, 
Patagonia and Brazil. 
When still a beardless young man he went 
up the river Niger in time to tell David Liv- 
ingstone all about that country in Sir Roderick 
Murchison's London drawing room. On the 
African island of Fernando Po he was put 
down on the sand to die comfortably of Afri 
can fever, but was rescued and nursed back to 
life by a negro woman. But for Mrs. Showers, 
a washerwoman for ships, and a missionary 
to fheriwathen, there would have been no 
Henry A. Ward these last forty years, and no 
natural science establishment in Rochester. 
But why do I try to enumerate the 
countries and places that have been visited 
by this traveler, when I can more easily 
name those he has not visited? There are 
certain portions of the interior of South 
America, and of China, Japan, Siberia and 
Thibet that he knows not by sight. He has 
never been to the Arctic regions, for he finds 
cold weather very disagreeable, nor to Kergue- 
len Island. Excepting the above localities, the 
wor)ldjs_hi8,_"^,One of the greatest pleasures 
I find in lookii.g hack over the growth of the 
establishment ' said he in a recent conversa- 
tion, '*is in thinking of the acquaintances I 
have made in so many parts of the world, the 
linking of so many kinds of men to myself, aa 
it were. It seems as if I had actual lines out 
to all those countries ; and in the humanitarian 
spirit which recognizes all mankind as one 
blood, it is delightful to me co recognize ' my 
brothers' in the people I have met all over the 
world, savages and all. At Berberahlast win- 
ter I felt like saying to those Somali Arabs, 
' How do you do ? I have felt for years as if I 
knew you, and now I have come to see you.' 
One result of my roaming is that it has given 
me a feeling of kinship for all mankind ; and 
to me it illuminates the world !" 
Thousands of people there are, also, who 
know Professor Ward only by correspondence, 
all written by his own hand, and the cords of 
letters he has written since I first knew him 
remind me of his handwriting. It is pecu- 
liar, and once seen is never forgotten. It i« so 
heavy, so run together, and so peculiar that 
it caused one of his western correspondents to 
protest as follows : '* If you should ever try to 
get up a writing school in this vicinity, I will 
do all I can against you Why will you per- 
sist in writing with a sharp stick, when pen« 
are so cheap?" But there is balm in Gilead, 
and now that Professor Ward's charming 
daughter Alice has attained to womanhood, 
she is not only the head of his small house- 
hold, but still further lightens the cares of her 
father by acting as his secretary, and writing 
many of his letters on a machine. 
Naturally one is curious to know the rel- 
igious belief of this strange cosmopolitan, who 
has hobnobbed with American puritans, French 
infidels, Mohammedan Arabs, Chinese, Budd 
hists, and goodness only knows what else. 
While going down the Red Sea with hltD> 
bound for the great hot-bed of Mohammedan 
fanaticism, Jedda.'l put the question. 
" I am an agnostic," jp-as the answer : '* but 
I would like to be called a Christian agnostic. 
I would like to be spoken of ,as one possessing 
the high hopes and ideals of Christianity, ex- 
cept that mine are based on data entirely dis 
tinct from those on which Christians base 
theirs. In short. I say of many of the highf>st 
claims and promises of the Christian re- _ 1 i: 
that I accept them as possibilities, tb 
difi:erence being that while a Christie 
' I know it to be so,* I say, ' It may be f-o. ' 1 look 
upon the dogmas of Christianity as earfnently 
