The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-26 00:00:00

Treaties of Commerce being yet, at this moment,
in process of negotiation with England and
with Holland. So elated, in fact, with the
results of the whole movement is the one
man who has individually benefited by it,
that is to say, the King—[Cavoun having died
under the weight of its prosecution, GARIBALDI
having Wien under a fusillade from the royal sol-
diery because of his at any rate consistent pertina-
city in striving to carry it out to the very last ex-
tremity]—that to his Majesty's view everything is
rose-coloured. Army and navy are getting rapidly
disciplined and perfected, he almost tells us—for
something more! "Within two years," says his
MAJESTY, "from the campaign of the glorious sub-
Alpine army, the soldiers of our new provinces have
been organised, and we are now proud of an Italian
army, brilliant alike by its valour and solid in its dis-
cipline. Our navy, rich with so many great elements,
and to the development of which yon have devoted
so much solicitude, will equal, in progress the renown
the army has attained." All the while listening
to those sonorous words, reading them as they come
flashed to us by telegraph, we cannot but muse over
the somewhat selfish complacency of the royal
speaker, remembering not only, as we have said—
how his Chief Statesman • succumbed in the over
zealous advancement, coute qui coute, of the
interests of his King—how his Chief Soldier,
the greatest military adventurer now living, was
thrown aside like a broken sword-blade when it
had done its utmost in carving out, through a
host of difficulties, the still incomplete and
malformed Rough Outline of a State, called the
Kingdom of Italy.
Reading the KING'S Speech of yesterday—at
the close of its perusal there comes discor-
dantly to recollection one sinister item from a
mass of evidence recently brought forward in the
British House of Commons by an eyewitness as
credible as the noble lord the Member for the
borough of Chichester :—" In the next room [Lord
HENRY LENNOX is recounting his recent peregrina-
tion through the prison at Salerno] there were 230
persons, and to state the squalor and filth in which
these men were would require an abler and more elo-
quent tongue than mine to paint ! Among them were
men of the National Guard, who were condemned
to that living death because they had listened to
the voice of GARIBALDI ! One of them was a most
wretched object, and many of them had been in
prison so long that they had literally no clothes, and
were therefore unable to rise to ask for that pity
which had before greeted my ears !" The grave
of CAVOITR, the rock of Caprera, the dungeons of
the State prison at Valerno—cluster like un-
sightly and reproachful vignettes round that pic-
tured pageantry yesterday in the Royal Palace at
Turin.

The Royal Geographical Society has had an
unexpected and scarcely looked for triumph to
celebrate at its annual meeting, where full justice
was rendered both to the difficulties and the suc-
cess recounted by the eloquent discourse of their
President. The address of Sir RODERICK MUR-
CHISON will be read with deep interest, for it
gives, in a simple, yet graphic manner, an out-
line of the labours and researches that resulted
in the remarkable discovery over which we are now
rejoicing. The details of the expedition, the Presi-
dent purposely left to be more fully given by the
discoverers themselves, whose speedy arrival in
this country is now confidently looked for. It was
enough to tell ns, in the interval, that they had
richly earned their reward by a long course of
exertion and danger, which needed all their tact
and courage to bring to a speedy conclu-
sion. Only a few weeks since, as Sir RODERICK
MURCHISON reminded his hearers, the greatest
anxiety was felt for the fate of the enterprising
travellers, and these gloomy forebodings were
heightened bythe rumour, happily false, of the death
of Consul PETHERICK. It will be remembered that
this gentleman had arranged to meet the travellers
at Gondokoro, on the White Nile, and there to supply
them with money and other necessaries. These ar-
rangements were of course dependant upon the safe
passage of both parties through the dangers of the
intervening route, and unfortunately the loss of all
Consul PETHERICK'S stores would have prevented
him from assisting his friends, although he reached
the appointed spot. But help was at hand. Another
English traveller had heard of Mr. PETHERICK'S
troubles, and with a liberality and enterprise that
reflect the highest honour on him, he immediately
fitted out an expedition at his own cost, resolved if
possible to relieve the explorers, or, if that hope
failed, to pursue the explorations himself. His
energy was rewarded by meeting the wanderers at
Gondokoro five days before the arrival of Mr.
PETHERICK, and by supplying all their needs. The
joy of the travellers at beholding him can with
difficulty be pictured in a civilised country. " The
meeting," says Captain SPEKE, "of two old friends
suddenly approaching one another from the oppo-
site hemispheres, without the slightest warning,
can be better understood than described. He was
our saviour, if not in the interior, at any
rate on the Nile." The account of Captain
SPEKE'S adventures among the native tribes are
full of interest. He was fortunate enough to obtain
the favour of three powerful Kings—one of whom
behaved to him with singular kindness; another
detained him in a kind of honourable captivity for
five months, this delay being very vexatious.
The last district through which he had to pass was,
however, the most troublesome, for the people were
barbarous, and the King endeavoured to take from
him his only chronometer. The adventurers passed
a whole year in getting through three kingdoms,
in no one of which had a white man ever been seen.
And Sir RODERICK MURCHISON remarked that they
would scarcely have accomplished this alive had
they not been liberal in their gifts to the Kings,
and had not these Sovereigns, whose power is abso-
lute, anxiously wished to open a trade with the
whites. In spite of all delays and dangers,
however, the travellers safely accomplished
their journey, and they have thereby entitled
themselves to a high place among the list
of eminent discoverers. `` The question of
the sources of the Nile," said the President, " has
occupied geographers and travellers from the re-
motest periods of history ; and when we come down
to the period of the Romans, we learn from SENECA
that NERO sent up two centurions to settle the
question, but they returned without accomplishing
whate:.e f ourre, for u
two countrymen
only
ountrymen have effected. It is not,
this occasion, but our asc gounetcrgyrnsph luelrds to rejoice
be
proud
oi
such a feat as has been accomplished by the two
gillant officers of the Indian army ; and I have no
doubt that when the reci,als of their toilsandjour-
neys are made known, as well as their graphic
description of interior negro kingdoms of whose
names we never heard, they will be greeted with
the same applause of the public as that which was
so justly bestowed on my illustrious friend LIVING
STONE after be had traversed Southern A &ice."
Many a long day elapsed from the return of the
two centurions from their fruitless quest, before Sir
RODERICK MURCHISON received Captain SPEKE'S
laconic telegram, " The Nile is settled !"
Curiously enough it was Captain SPEKE
who first propounded the theory which has sub-
sequently proved to be the right one, namely,