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 [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.] has taken much longer time than, from my
inexperience in authorship, I had anticipated.
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 my researches by every means in
their power. His faithful majesty Don Pedro V., having kindly sent out
orders to support my late companions until my return, relieved my mind of
anxiety on their account. But for this act of liberality, I should
certainly have been compelled to leave England in May last; and it has
afforded me the pleasure of traveling over, in imagination, every scene
again, and recalling the feelings which actuated me at the time. I have
much pleasure in acknowledging my deep obligations to the hospitality and
kindness of the Portuguese on many occasions. I have not entered into the
early labors, trials, and successes of the missionaries who preceded me in
the Bechuana country, because that has been done by the much abler pen of
my father-in-law, Rev. Robert Moffat, of Kuruman, who has been an
energetic and devoted actor in the scene for upward of forty years. A
slight sketch only is given of my own attempts, and the chief part of the
book is taken up with a detail of the efforts made to open up a new field
north of the Bechuana country to the sympathies of Christendom. The
prospects there disclosed are fairer than I anticipated, and the
capabilities of the new region lead me to hope that by the production of
the raw materials of our manufactures, African and English interests will
become more closely linked than heretofore, that both countries will be
eventually benefited, and that the cause of freedom throughout the world
will in some measure be promoted.
Dr. Hooker, of Kew, has had the kindness to
name and classify for me, as far as possible, some of the new botanical
specimens which I brought over; Dr. Andrew Smith (himself an African
traveler) has aided me in the zoology; and Captain Need has laid open for
my use his portfolio of African sketches, for all which acts of liberality
my thanks are deservedly due, as well as to my brother, who has rendered
me willing aid as an amanuensis. Although I can not profess to be a
draughtsman, I brought home with me a few rough diagram-sketches, from one
of which the view of the Falls of the Zambesi has been prepared by a more
experienced artist. October, 1857.
