n, Oct., 1857.

Preface.

When honored with a special meeting of welcome by the Royal Geographical
Society a few days after my arrival in London in December last, Sir
Roderick Murchison, the President, invited me to give the world a
narrative of my travels; and at a similar meeting of the Directors of
the London Missionary Society I publicly stated my intention of sending
a book to the press, instead of making many of those public appearances
which were urged upon me. The preparation of this narrative* has
taken much longer time than, from my inexperience in authorship, I had
anticipated.

* Several attempts having been made to impose upon the public,
as mine, spurious narratives of my travels, I beg to tender my
thanks to the editors of the 'Times' and of the 'Athenaeum'
for aiding to expose them, and to the booksellers of London
for refusing to SUBSCRIBE for any copies.

Greater smoothness of diction and a saving of time might have been
secured by the employment of a person accustomed to compilation; but my
journals having been kept for my own private purposes, no one else
could have made use of them, or have entered with intelligence into the
circumstances in which I was placed in Africa, far from any European
companion. Those who have never carried a book through the press
can form no idea of the amount of toil it involves. The process has
increased my respect for authors and authoresses a thousand-fold.

I can not refrain from referring, with sentiments of admiration
and gratitude, to my friend Thomas Maclear, Esq., the accomplished
Astronomer Royal at the Cape. I shall never cease to remember his
instructions and help with real gratitude. The intercourse I had the
privilege to enjoy at the Observatory enabled me to form an idea of the
almost infinite variety of acquirements necessary to form a true and
great astronomer, and I was led to the conviction that it will be long
before the world becomes overstocked with accomplished members of that
profession. Let them be always honored according to their deserts; and
long may Maclear, Herschel, Airy, and others live to make known the
wonders and glory of creation, and to aid in rendering the pathway of
the world safe to mariners, and the dark places of the earth open to
Christians!

I beg to offer my hearty thanks to my friend Sir Roderick Murchison,
and also to Dr. Norton Shaw, the secretary of the Royal Geographical
Society, for aiding m