The Express.
London, England, 1864-09-17 00:00:00

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THE COMPANIES ACT, 1862. The Books
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THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

0,11011 A 001

BATH, Punt.

The sad death of Captain Speke is the only thing
that people care to speak of to-day. The event has
cast a gloom over the meeting generally, and espe-
cially in the department which is the most popular,
and where the preemies of the young Englishman
who discovered the sources of the Nile represented
at once the adventurous enterprise, the practical
skill iu science, and the manliness of the soldier-
traveller and explorer of savage and dangerous
regions. It was known only to a few of the mem-
bers that this moat distressing and fatal accident bad
occurred, and it was painful to sit and hear the signs
of the common impatience an audience makes when
kept waiting after the time appointed. The stamping
and scraping was hushed, as it might well have been
a little sooner, by the entrance of Sir Roderick
Murchison, the President of the Geographical Sec-
tion, who in a very grave manner and in a very
feeble voice began to announce the melancholy acci-
dent which had deprived the Society of so distin-
guished a member. The precise words I could not
catch ; but these no doubt will be reported accurately,
with the resolution of condolence passed by the
Committee, which was read by Sir Rode-
rick. I must say that for my part I
could not help feeling how very inade-
quate it seemed to be as an expression of
what all must have felt in that numerous assembly.
1 hoped that Sir Roderick, as the head of the
Society and the science, which have derived so
much honour from the researches of Captain Speke,
would have attempted something more in the form
of an enthusiastic tribute to the deeds of a great
though a young traveller. I thought that if this
event had occurred in France his brother explorers
and all the men of science would have risen at once
into a high and generous eulogy ; they would not
have waited to frame, in all due propriety, a formal
resolution. So we Englishmen miss these opportu-
nities of speaking from the heart words that give
a zest to life ! I have not been able to
learn more of this lamentable accident than that
Captain Speke got up early in the morning
to go out shooting ; he was at the very core a
sportsman, and indeed, as I once beard him say with
unaffected enthusiasm, it was this passion for sport
which led him to Africa. It appears that he had
walked a little in advance of his party and had got
over a wall—strange to say for so experienced a 'porta-
man—with the muzzle of his gun pointed towards
his cheat. He was seen to fall at the moment the re-
port of the gun was heard, and his friends on run-
ning up to him found the poor fellow all but dead.
He was in reality killed instantaneously, as it has
been described by those who heard the message given
to the Committee of the Section. How mysterious
it is that a man who had survived so many perils,
and escaped so many risks, should come at last to
an end like this ! It is rather remarkable that
Bruce, the greatest traveller of his day in those very
regions of Africa which Speke explored, and in
search of the same great problem in geography, died
by an accident equally sudden, and, if possible,
under more sorrowful circumstances. He had en-
tertained a party of friends at his house, and in
bidding them god-speed his foot slipped on the top
step of the doorway, and he fell, receiving some
vital injury which left him dead on the spot.
The effect of the announcement upon the gay
audience of ladies was marked by a decorous
silence for a few moments, and some looked down,
perhaps to hide a tear over a brave spirit, but there
was no proposition to adjourn for even an hour.
Captain Burton, with a sort of sinister felicity,
stood ready as it were to fill the gap, armed with a
paper on his ascent of the Congo river, and his
visit to the King of Dahomey. Captain Burton,
though, as every one knows, a not very generous
rival of Captain Speke, might, it should seem, have
seized the moment to say one noble and generous
word of his fellow-traveller, but he was silent
and collected. They travelled together in the first
expedition in search of the great Lakes, but only
so far as they were obliged to keep company
in a desert land and belonging to the same
expedition. They differed in their views of
many things, particularly (as it turned out)
as to the Source of the Nile. Captain Bur-
ton rushed home to the Geographical, and into
print at the same pace, to tell how he had very
nearly found it out, while Speke kept his eye
I steadily bearing for the great lake fountain of the
Nile, and made the discovery that has immortalized
his name. There is this last melancholy kind of
satisfaction to be felt when a celebrated man is
snatched in his prime thus suddenly and cruelly
away from us, that it marks him with a certain
halo of distinction, and we solace ourselves, as the
ancients did, with the thought that lie war called
away to be the guest of the gods.
Sir Charles Lyell's Address is likely to be a rather
tough bone of contention for the year. One good
thing ; there is plenty of meat in it, and to those
who have the constitution to stand good, strong,
wholesome sustenance, no doubt it will do more than
all the orthodox tonics that are supplied to the stu-
dents who have not a very good appetite for plain
food. I have met with two or three who object to
being expected to give such long credit as " myriads
of centuries," and there are those who shake their
heads and look pitiably aggrieved because
the President used the term " plan of Nature "
while speaking of a complete record of her works
to be studied by rational beings in after ages. This
was probably no more than Sir Charles himself
expected, and I only regret with many down here
that we cannot have a discussion upon the
President's address ; this would be indeed
a splendid opportunity. The widest and
perhaps most useful discussion, however,
which it will provoke, and so highly merits, will
be in the thoughful reading that it will claim, and
will continue to receive throughout the whole world.
Its enlightened and profound philosophy will
find a powerful response everywhere, and
we shall be made sensible, I dare say, of