The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-03 00:00:00

BENSON'S WATCHES.
" Perfection of mechanism."—Morning Post.
Gold Watches 4 to 100 guineas.
Silver Watches
33 and 34, Ludgate-hill, London, E.C.
Sand 2 stamps for Benson's Illustrated Pamphlet on Watches.

MINERALOGY.—King's College, London.—
Professor TENNANT, F.G.S., will commence a
COURSE of IsECTURES on MINERALOGY, with a view
to facilitate the study of Geology, and of the application of
mineral substances in the Arts. The Lectures will commence
on Friday, Oct. 7th, at nine o'clock a.m. They will be con-
tinued on each succeeding Wednesday and Friday, at the
same hour. Fee, .£2 2s

R. W. JELF, D.D., Principal.

ROYAL ENGLISH OPERA,
COVENT-GARDEN.
Under the management of Miss L. Pyne and Mr.W. Harrison.
THIS EVENING, DINO R A H. Messrs. Santley, H.
Corri, St. Albyn, and W. Harrison. Misses Pilling, Thirl-
wall, and Miss Louisa Pyne.
Conductor, Alfred Mellon.
DIVERTISSEMENT. Mdlles. Lequine, Pasquale, Pier-
ron, and Mons. Vandris.

district, himself found them, in the accounts of the
natives and the relics he brought home ; and it is
now found that the men, or a large part certainly,
had died on the very spot where Dr. KING would
have sent to their relief ! He was near the very

relics just found, but still did not search sufficiently

to find them.
And now we come to the last story—that of
M'CLINTOCK'S-it confirms Dr. KING'S prophecies
to the letter. The western land of North Somer-

set is the midway between the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany 'on the Mackenzie and the fishing grounds of
the whalers in Barrow Straits," says the letter of

. ,
June 1847. Let the reader now glance at Mr.
WYLD'S well-timed map, and there he finds it all.
It looks almost like clairvoyance. There, Mr.
WYLD, a perfectly independent authority, has
given us the positions of the deserted ships in every
channel indicated ; :there the geographer marks
the spots where relics were found and inquiries
successfully made from the natives ; there he in-
dicates where M'CLINTOCK found successive
traces of them on King William's and Montreal
Islands on their way to the great Fish River,
which the doctor said they would make for, while
the Admiralty pertinaciously denied it. And there
he may follow by a glance M'CLINTocK's three
exploring parties, as they verify in detail the pre-
dictions of Dr. KING.

But there is one more comparison of dates to
which we have asked attention. The despised
letter of advice was dated June 10, 1847. Only one
day after that date Sir JOHN FRANKLIN peacefully
breathed his last, surrounded by an affectionate
and admiring crew, and hoping doubtless that
friends in England would soon relieve his brave
companions from danger of death by starvation.
But it was nearly eleven months after this advice was
given, that the gallant crews, reduced by disease
to from 138 to 105 deserted the ice-bound ships and
set off for the Great Fish River. In the melan-
choly tin box containing the brief record left by
the sufferers, we are told that they quitted the
ships on the 28th April, 1848. Dr. KING had
almost agonizingly supplicated to be sent for their
salvation by a route which would have taken him
directly to them on the 10th of June of the year
preceding ! So perished our lion-hearted soldiers in
the Crimea under the management of the white-
washed worthies of Chelsea, while a TULLOCII was
snubbed for telling the truth, and LUCANS and
CARDIGANS got honours for manslaughter by
Horse Guards rules. And so will thousands of
Englishmen die yet by land and by sea, because
place and appointment go by connection not by

merit.
Millions, if we remember rightly, have been
squandered on expeditions in search of Sir JOHN
FRANKLIN by sea, and one land expedition was sent,
only perversely sent, NOT to the spot insisted on by
Dr. KING. But a solitary £l,OOO or two could not
be spared to send the man who would in all human
probability have saved the lives of 105 British
sailors ! It is the old story—officialism and routine
versus unconnected merit and special knowledge,.
If any of our readers can scarcely credit such
strong statements, let them take Mr. WYLD'S map
is one hand, and Dr. KING'S little work, above re-
ferred to, in the other, and we are perfectly cer-
tain that his verdict on the 105 will not be " acci-
dental death."'

It is satisfactory to have obtained, even through
no more than three brief notes and a postscript, a

passing glance up the Zambesi as far as Tete,
affording us a glimpse of the Government explor-
ing expedition sent into Central Africa under the
guidance of the adventurous Doctor DAVID
LIVINGSTONE. These three communications, brief
as they are, afford the friends of this later
BELZONI every reason for rejoicing. They evidence
throughout that unflagging energy on the part of
the distinguished traveller which, more than any
other quality, perhaps, is his conspicuous charac-
teristic. They are. full of cheerfulness, and are
consequently, it need scarcely be added, fraught
with encouragement. Dr. LlVlNGSTONE—address-
ipg himself in each instance to the late Governor of
the Cape Colonies, the high-minded and self-for-
getting Sir GEORGE GREY—writes in high spirits,
though in a tone of tempered enthusiasm. It is a
wonderful view he gives us, certainly, of that
hitherto unpenetrated part of the world we live
in ! A river current with a tidal rise varying
from a minimum sometimes of 32 feet to a maxi-
mum occasionally of 15 feet ! The channel of this
vast stream being at the point indicated (Tete) 964
yards from bank to bank, " about three times the
width," as the Doctor reminds us, " of the Thames
at London-bridge." He adds, however, what
makes us immediately regard this as in no way so
very extraordinary in regard to the Zambesi ;
that —" at the broadest part (we presume down
towards the Delta) it is about three miles" (in
breadth), being at this point divided into five or
six different, but of course all but contiguous,
channels. At one point of this singular stream
Dr. LIVINGSTONE writes—" We steamed about
four miles beyond where any description we could
get even here terminated, and found that instead
of a number of detached rocks jutting out of the
water across the stream, the affair arises from the
Zambesi being confined by mountains, to a bed a
quarter of a mile wide at parts, and at one point to
50 or 60 yards. In the wider part there is a deep
groove cut out of the solid rock, if such it
can be called, where rocks are twisted, broken,
cleaved, and huddled together in every direction,
besides being waterworn and drilled with portholes
everywhere. When sailing up the groove, with the
walls far above our masts, the man at the lead kept
calling out no bottom at ten fathoms.' Yet the
groove fills at flood and flows over the adjacent bed,
though to do so it must rise perpendicularly 80 or
100 feet." In this curious groove are several
rapids—" one " of them, Dr. LIVINGSTONE tells us,
" which had five feet of fall," becoming level at
three feet general rise of the current of the Zambesi!
Upon either side of this rocky river-pass mountains
towering up to a height of at least 2,300 feet—and
these, let it be remembered, no mere arid steeps
and pinnacles of granite, but well-wooded acclivi-
ties clothed with luxuriant foliage. Nay, one of
those mountains, Marambala, soaring to an altitude
of 4,000 feet, is described by the observant travel-
ler as having " a wonderfully well cultivated large
top." The soil so generous and the climate so
benignant that—" lemon trees grow quite wild in

..,
the woods, and so do oranges and pine-apples !"
Scattered about, too, in this salubrious and fruitful
region are " several fine little fountains," some of
them " with water slightly chalybeate !" The
people here appear to have surprised Dr. LIVIG-
STONE by some of their peculiarities more even than
the genial atmosphere or the abundant vegetation.
One peculiarity he mentions as follows :—" The
women," he writes, " insert an ornament exactly
the shape of the rings for table - napkins
in the upper lip,"• the DOCTOR adding la-
conically, 6' the effect is frightful." Kissing is
those regions, one -would think, is rather at a dis-
count! The appendage, in its hideous peculiarity,
reminds one of COWLEY'S condemnation of wit in
exuberance—

" Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part—
That shows more coat than art
Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear:
Rather than all things wit, let none be there."
Well may Doctor LIVINGSTONE, when he saw the