of presenting a testimonial to Dr.
Livingstone. It was addressed by the Bishop of London, Mr. Raikes
Currie, and others.

Meanwhile, a sensible impulse was given to the _scientific_ enthusiasm
for Livingstone by the arrival of the report of a great meeting held in
Africa itself in honor of the missionary explorer. At Cape Town, on 12th
November, 1856, His Excellency the Governor, Sir George Grey, the
Colonial Secretary, the Astronomer-Royal, the Attorney-General, Mr.
Rutherfoord, the Bishop, the Rev. Mr. Thompson, and others, vied with
each other in expressing their sense of Livingstone's character and
work. The testimony of the Astronomer-Royal to Livingstone's eminence as
an astronomical observer was even more emphatic than Murchison's and
Owen's to his attainments in geography and natural history. Going over
his whole career, Mr. Maclear showed his unexampled achievements in
accurate lunar observation. "I never knew a man," he said, "who, knowing
scarcely anything of the method of making geographical observations, or
laying down positions, became so soon an adept, that he could take the
complete lunar observation, and altitudes for time, within fifteen
minutes." His observations of the course of the Zambesi, from Sesheke to
its confluence with the Lonta, were considered by the Astronomer-Royal
to be "the finest specimens of sound geographical observation he ever
met with."

"To give an idea of the laboriousness of this branch of his
work," he adds, "on an average each lunar distance consists
of five partial observations, and there are 148 sets of
distances, being 740 contacts,--and there are two altitudes
of each object before, and two after, which, together with
altitudes for time, amount to 2812 partial observations. But
that is not the whole of his observations. Some of them
intrusted to an Arab have not been received, and in reference
to those transmitted he says, 'I have taken others which I do
not think it necessary to send.' How completely all this
stamps the impress of Livingstone on the interior of South
Africa!... I say, what that man has done is unprecedented....
You could go to any point across the entire continent, along
Livingstone's track, and feel certain of your position[49]."

[Footnote 49: It seems unaccountable that in the face of such unrivaled
testimonies, reflections should continue to be cast on Livingstone's
scientific