fertility being due entirely to the Nile, I trust that I
may have added my mite to the treasury of scientific,
knowledge by completing the discovery of the sources
of that wonderful river, and thereby to have opened a
way to the heart of Africa, which, though dark in
our limited perspective, may, at some future period,
be the path to civilization.
I offer to the world my narrative of many years of
hardships and difficulties, happily not vainly spent' in
this great enterprise : should some un-ambitious spirits
reflect, that the results are hardly worth the sacrifice of
the best years of life thus devoted to exile and suffering,
let them remember that “ we are placed on earth
for a certain period, to fulfil according to our several
conditions and degrees of . mind, those duties by which
the earth’s history is carried on.” *
* E. L. Bulwer’s “ Life, Literature, and Manners.”
