XXX 
INTRODUCTION. 
fertility being cine entirely to the Nile, I trust that I 
may have added my mite to the treasury of scientific 
knowledge by completing the discovery of the sources 
of that wonderful river, and thereby to have opened a 
way to the heart of Africa, which, though dark in 
our limited perspective, may, at some future period, 
be the path to civilization. 
I offer to the world my narrative of many years of 
hardships and difficulties, happily not vainly spent in 
this great enterprise : should some un-ambitious spirits 
reflect, that the results are hardly worth the sacrifice of 
the best years of life thus devoted to exile and suffer¬ 
ing, let them remember that “ we are placed on earth 
for a certain period, to fulfil according to our several 
conditions and degrees of mind, those duties by which 
the earth's history is carried on." * 
* E. L. Bulwer’s “Life, Literature, and Manners/’ 
