136 
MECHANISM OF THE HEAVENS. 
bits of preserved beef, which we eat with our baseen? 
and hamsa. 
Amidst so many uncertainties in Central Africa 
we may not see another Christmas-day. O God ! 
whenever the time of our departure is come, may 
we he found relying for salvation on that Saviour* 
thine only-begotten Son, born on this clay. 
Overweg and I conversed late at night on the 
mechanism of the heavens, and the antiquity of 
the world, according to the received theories of 
astronomers and geologists ; the dark and black 
vault above, sprinkler! over with brilliant points, 
being the object which first set our thoughts in 
motion. The stars are time itself, and also illus- 
trations of the passage of light through the universe. 
The earth was once a hotter orb, passing succes- 
sively from a vaporous to a fluid, and then a solid 
state. The northern climes were once torrid zones, 
from the evidence of the fossil remains and from 
coals, which are masses of tropical trees. Such 
were the speculations in which we indulged.* 
26th. — We stay here to-day. There is some 
trouble amongst those restless tribes, the Kaltadak 
and Kalfadai" ; and Yusuf was sent for this 
* I have not thought it advisable to abridge or alter this naive 
account of a Christmas -day on the southern borders of the Sahara, 
Mr. Richardson seems already to feel certain presentiments of the fate 
that awaited him. In other places I have omitted devotional passages ; 
but in this it seemed to me that it would be unjust to the memory of 
this amiable traveller to do so. — Ed. 
