I thought that a cooler and more
leisurely progress would enable me to feel my way into a country, whose
inhospitable character developed itself more the more it was penetrated.
I had adopted certain opinions, the correctness of which I was anxious to
test, and I thought the investigations I desired to make, were not only
worthy the pursuit of private ambition, but deserving the attention of
Her Majesty's Government. With these feelings I could not but be grateful
to Lord Stanley, for having entertained my proposition, and given me an
opportunity to distinguish myself. It is not because his Lordship is no
longer at the head of the Colonial Office, that I should refrain from
making my acknowledgments to him, and expressing the sense I entertain of
the obligation under which he has laid me. It so happened that the course
pointed out to me by Lord Stanley, and that in which I desired to go,
were the same, and I had hoped that in following up my instructions, I
should ultimately have gained the spot I so ardently desired to reach,
and to have left the flag of my native country flying over it.
The feelings then with which I returned to the creek after the failure of
our last attempt to penetrate to the north may well be imagined. I
returned to it, as I have said, with perhaps a sullen determination to
stand out the drought; but, on calm reflection, I found that I could not
do so.
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