206 
TEAVELS IN CENTEAL AEEICA. 
contributions to the natural history of the rude and savage men,, 
and of the wild beasts among which they live_, are well known 
through the medium of the book Egypt, Soudan,, and Central 
Africa^) Mr. Petherick has himself published,, and also through 
the columns of the ^ Field. ^ 
^‘^Not many days ago the news appeared hy telegram in the 
London papers^ that Mr. Petherick and his wife were drowned in 
the White Nile. Of course we were all very grieved to hear this, 
and we anxiously wait further particulars. I have, however, just 
received a letter from my friend Dr. Genzik, who lived for many 
years next door to Petherick at Khartoum, and held the appoint- 
ment of Physician and Sanitary Inspector at that town under the 
Egyptian Government, and who knows the White Nile and the rude 
inhabitants of these districts from long practical experience. 
He writes from Prague, in Bohemia, to me thus : I see from 
the newspapers that Petherick, with all his family, wife, and ser- 
vants, has been drowned on the White Nile. I donH believe this 
version ; he was murdered, with all his party, either by the negroes 
or by his own people, and the news of his having been drowned 
spread by them. • I know the White Nile, its visitors, its ivory and 
ebony borders, better than anybody else.^ 
Immediately I received this, I took the liberty of submitting 
it to Sir Boderick Murchison, President of the Boyal Geographical 
Society, as I had read a report of a meeting of the society, where 
Petherick’s death was officially announced. I have done this in 
the hope that the circumstances under which our good friend met 
his death may be immediately fully inquired into by the authorities. 
If the poor fellow was really drowned, no harm can come of the 
inquiry ; but if he, with his good lady (to whom he was married 
just before he bade us farewell), was knocked on the head and 
