overnment expedition, as head of which Sir George Grey was
selected, should determine this, and familiarise the Aborigines with the
British name and character.

'It's odd,' Sir George said, 'to reflect that in the latitudes, for which
we were bound, human beings were everywhere eating one another. There was
a patch of settled civilisation at the Cape, a lighthouse beaming into
those seas, and that was about all, The full glow had to arrive from the
north, seeing that south of a line, drawn from the Cape to Australia and
New Zealand, there was only the Antarctic wilderness.

'You had ice in such parts as the savage could not inhabit; bleakness
eternal, with no promise of help in raising him to a higher life. Mostly,
in the history of mankind, civilisation has grown in upon a country from
several quarters. The contrary should be noted in respect to the lands,
which, as we left Plymouth, seemed to us so attractive, so full of
promise for generations yet unborn. We were to test that promise, and
Darwin's "Beagle," having brought him home from a voyage, was to bear us
on another.'

Sir George already knew Darwin enough to be a frequent caller on him in
London. They discussed evolution, and a host of subjects in which Darwin
manifested an interest. Sir George's vignette of him was that he was one
of the most amiable men it were possible to conceive. He was closely
occupied with his own work, but that did not prevent him from being an
informed observer of other things.

'Of the advantages of association with master intellects,' Sir George
would say, 'I sought to make the best use. The three men who exercised
most influence on me were Archbishop Whately, Sir James Stephen, and
Thomas Carlyle, names which I revere. They denote characters who adorned
the nation, and as for Carlyle, I can only describe him as a profoundly
great figure. When I think of him, I immediately fly to Babbage, the
inventor of the famous calculating machine. And I'm afraid I smile.'

The link lay in certain experiences which befell Carlyle and Babbage in
the streets of London. The coincidence was notable, and, farther, Sir
George thought it strange that each great man should have made him
confidant. But he had delighted in receiving the confidences, proofs of
their friendship, and with a mixture of gravity and amusement he had
consoled the martyrs.

'Being,' he entered upon the tale, 'once introduced to Carlyle's company,
I think by Sir Richard Owen,