might have been far advanced.  I hope Lord John Russell will help in this matter, and then we must have a small colony or missionary and mercantile settlement.  If this our desire is granted, it is probable we shall have no cause to lament our long toil and detention here.  My wife’s letters, too, were lost, so I don’t know how or where she is.  Our separation, and the work I have been engaged in, were not contemplated, but they have led to our opening a path into the fine cotton-field in the North.  You will see that the discoveries of Burton and Speke confirm mine respecting the form of the continent and its fertility.  It is an immense field.  I crave the honor of establishing a focus of Christianity in it, but should it not be granted, I will submit as most unworthy.  I have written Mr. Venn twice, and from yours I see something is contemplated in Cambridge....  If young men come to this country, they must lay their account with doing everything for themselves.  They must not expect to find influence at once, and all the countries near to the Portuguese have been greatly depopulated.  We are now ascending this river without vegetables, and living on salt beef and pork.  The slave-trade has done its work, for formerly all kinds of provisions could be procured at every point, and at the cheapest rate.  We cannot get anything for either love or money, in a country the fertility of which is truly astonishing.

A few more general topics are touched on in a letter to Mr. Braithwaite: 

“I am sorry to hear of the death of Mr. Sturge.  He wrote me a long letter on the ‘Peace principle,’ and before I could study it carefully, it was mislaid.  I wrote him from Tette, as I did not wish him to suppose I neglected him, and mentioned the murder of the six Makololo and other things, as difficulties in the way of adopting his views, as they were perfectly unarmed, and there was no feud between the tribes.  I fear that my letter may not have reached him alive.  The departure of Sir Fowell Buxton and others is very unexpected.  Sorry to see the loss of Dr. Bowen, of Sierra Leone—­a good man and a true.  But there is One who ever liveth to make intercession for us, and to carry on his own work.  A terrible war that was in Italy, and the peace engenders more uneasy forebodings than any peace ever heard of.  It is well that God and not the devil reigns, and will bring his own purposes to pass, right through the midst of the wars and passions of men.  Have you any knowledge of a famous despatch written by Sir George Grey (late of the Cape), on the proper treatment of native tribes?  I wish to study it.

“Tell your children that if I could get hold of a hippopotamus I would eat it rather than allow it to eat me.  We see them often, but before we get near enough to get a shot they dive down, and remain hidden till we are past.  As for lions, we never see them, sometimes hear a roar or two, but that is all,