greyhounds sprang upon him. A young man who had been recommended to her had been made keeper of the greyhounds, but one of them having died, he was dismissed because she could not bear to be reminded of the death of the dog by the presence of his keeper. Her compassion was not limited to animals: a missionary related of her that many a time she would dismount to allow a wounded slave to ride, while she herself waded for hours through the deepest marshes.

For some time she lived at Cairo in this state of oriental magnificence, and it was her desire to build a palace for herself; but obstacles were thrown in her way, and she failed to get an appropriate site. This set her travelling again. After visiting many places on the African shores of the Mediterranean, and a few on the European side likewise, she meditated another journey to the Nile, not being in good health, and thinking that living in tents would tend to the recovery of her strength. On her way, between Mourzouk and Ghat, she was attacked by some Tuaregs, a tribe proverbially While she was trying to settle a quarrel between two of her camel-drivers, a javelin was thrust at her from behind with fatal effect. After she fell, the purpose of the attack became apparent. The rapacity of the savages was excited by the splendour of her establishment generally, but especially by her iron

savage.

water-chests, which the savages thought must be full of treasure.

Her death put an end to the expedition. It was believed that had she travelled in a simpler manner she would have had a better chance of passing unmolested through the country. Her murder took place in August 1869, when she was but thirty years of age.

It is painful to think of so much zeal, courage, and humanity being expended on an enterprise that led to so little result. But her labours were not wholly fruitless.1 Sir Samuel Baker, in the map accompanying the narrative of his discovery of the Albert Nyanza, has placed her name on that part of the map which she helped to explore, and which Schweinfurth more fully investigated some years after. Baker, Speke, Grant, and Petherick, all speak of her with respect. Dr Livingstone, in a letter to Sir Thomas M'Lean, Royal Astronomer at the Cape, written from Manyuema the month after her death (September 1869), of which, of course, he could not have heard, speaks of her with great admiration :

"A Dutch lady whom I never saw, and of whom I know nothing save from scraps in the newspapers, moves [traveller]. By her wise foresight in my sympathy more than any other providing a steamer and pushing on up the river after the severest domestic affliction-the loss by fever of her two aunts [her mother and her aunt]

till after she was assured by Speke and Grant that they had already disshe sought, she proved herself a gencovered in Victoria Nyanza the sources uine explorer, and then by trying to go S.W. on land. Had they not, honestly enough of course, given her

their mistaken views, she must inevitably, by boat or on land, have reached the head-waters of the Nile. I cannot conceive of her stopping short of Bangweolo. She showed such indomitable pluck she must be a descendant of Van Tromp, who swept the English Channel till killed by our Blake, and whose tomb every Englishman who goes to Holland is sure to visit." 1

It may be added that her stepnephew, Mr John Ernest Tinne, of the firm of Sandbach, Tinne, & Co., Liverpool, spent eight months at Tripoli (Barbary), in 1869-70, at the trial of her murderers, five of whom were imprisoned for life. Her body, we believe, was never recovered.

Our next name, though more familiar to English ears, is still that of a foreigner, for Florence van Sass, whom we know better as Lady Baker, the second wife of Sir Samuel Baker, and the chivalrous and devoted companion of all his African travels, toils, and perils, was a Hungarian. Nothing could be more graceful than her husband's notices of her courage, tact, and devotion, which are not crowded on us at every turn like the caresses of a lover, but introduced only on occasions which made a special call on his admiration and gratitude.

When first she started with him in 1861, the year after her marriage, she was but a girl. In the preface to his book he promises to

carry his reader along with him till he shall look down with him on the lake and drink the sources of the Nile.

"I have written he!" he adds. "How can I lead the more tender

sex through dangers and fatigues and passages of savage life? Should anything offend the sensitive mind and suggest the unfitness of the

situation for a woman's presence, I must beseech my fair readers to reflect that the pilgrim's wife followed him, weary and footsore, through all his difficulties, led, not by choice but by devotion; and that in times of misery and sickness, her tender care saved his life and prospered the expedition." "Had I been alone," he says afterwards, "it would have been no hard lot to die upon the untrodden path before me, but there was one who, though my greatest comfort, was also my greatest care,-one whose life yet dawned at so early an age that womanhood was still a future. I shuddered at the prospect for her, should she be left alone in savage lands at my death; and gladly would I have left her in the luxuries of home instead of exposing her to the miseries of Africa. It was in vain that I implored her to remain, and that I painted the difficulties and perils still blacker than I supposed they would really be; she was resolved, with woman's constancy and devotion, to share all dangers, and to follow me through each rough footstep of the wild life before me. 'And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.'"

At the most critical moments her tact and courage were never wanting; the cause was saved from ruin by her presence of mind. Readers of Baker's narrative will remember how on one occasion he had to struggle as through fire and water to get through the Ellyrian pass in advance of a party of traders under the Turk, Ibrahim, his avowed believed that he had accomplished enemy; and how, when he his object, and thought that he heard the voices of his men, who

were a little behind him, a most horrible sight presented itself the red Turkish flag and crescent, followed by the scoundrel Ibrahim! It was the death-knell of the expedition. But, as Baker says—

"its fate was retrieved by Mrs Baker. She implored me to call him, to insist on a personal explanation, and to offer him some present in the event of establishing amicable relations. I could not condescend to address the sullen scoundrel. He was in the act of passing us, and success depended on

that instant. Mrs Baker herself called him. For the moment he made no reply; but upon my repeating the call in a loud key, he turned his donkey towards us and dismounted."

Baker was himself again, and reasoned with the Turk to show that they did not need to be enemies, clinching his argument with a promise of a double-barrelled gun and a bag of gold. Ibrahim was won. Mrs Baker's presence of mind saved the expedition.

A

Another time when a desperate mutiny had arisen, and Baker had knocked down the ringleader, but only to gather a crowd round him. to rescue their comrade, Mrs Baker, though lying ill of fever a few yards off, rushed out, dashed into the middle of the crowd, calling on the least mutinous to assist, and made her way up to her husband. sudden indecision seized the crowd, and Baker shouted to the drummerboy to beat the drum, and at the top of his voice ordered the men to fall in. And fall in two-thirds of them did, as if overpowered by a mesmeric influence, the remainder retreating with the ringleader. But this was not all. The danger being past, Mrs Baker thought the victory should be improved, and besought her husband to say he would pardon the ringleader if he kissed his hand and begged his pardon.

The crowd approved, and the ringleader humbled himself; and though we cannot say that Baker and his men lived happily ever after, the men were quiet for a time, and all through the tact and courage of Mrs Baker.

The privations and sufferings of the youthful traveller were often very terrible, but in the Obbo country they came to a crisis. Both she and her husband had been greatly distressed by attacks of fever recurring at intervals, and their quinine was exhausted. Mrs Baker was so ill that she had to be carried in a litter, and at times she was unable to bear any movement. Looking round as they were crossing a river, Baker saw her face distorted and purple with sunstroke; by-and-by she fell down as if dead. They dragged her through and laid her down, perfectly senseless. Her hands and her teeth were clenched, and her husband had to force a wedge into her mouth in order to introduce a wet rag to moisten her throat. It was impossible to discontinue the march, since provisions were not to be had, and the litter in which she was carried had to be stopped from time to time, for there was a rattle in her throat as if she were being suffocated. being suffocated. For days and nights her husband watched her, but not a muscle did she move. But one morning he was startled to hear her faintly mutter, "Thank God." The torpor was past! But when he looked on her, her eyes were full of madness, and a week of brain-fever was followed by violent convulsions, making recovery seemingly hopeless. Overcome by fatigue and watching, Baker had fallen asleep: he awoke horrified at the thought that she must have died when he was sleeping. When he went to her, she was calm and clear. What brought

her round no mortal could tell. It seemed nothing short of a miracle. All the time of Baker's African travels, in 1861-62 when he was exploring Abyssinia; in 1863-65 when investigating the source of the Nile; and in 1869-73 during the Ismailian expedition for the suppression of the slave-trade, this noble woman continued at her husband's side. The last of these expeditions exposed her to danger from violence, from sudden, murderous attacks by the slave-traders and their allies, attacks of a kind liable to upset the nerves and paralyse the efforts of ordinary women. But for such things, too, Lady Baker was equal. Once when left in the charge of their fort in the absence of her husband, when she had some reason to expect an attack, skilful arrangements were made under her directions for its defence; every position was defended, and every rifle and pistol laid on the table to be ready for use; and it was probably when the enemy found that such preparations had been made that they let it alone. In the midst of actual warfare, with spears whizzing within a few feet of her head, she remained cool and collected, hardly understanding the name of danger. And her forethought was equal to her courage once in a time of great want of provisions she astonished and delighted the party by bring ing out six boxes of grain which she had stored away in a time of plenty, unknown to them all.

Well might her husband say of her at the conclusion of 'Ismailia':

"I must acknowledge the able assistance that I have received in common with every person connected with the inland expedition from my wife, who cared for the sick when we were without a medical man, and

whose gentle aid brought comfort to many whose strength might otherwise have failed. During a period of fourteen months, with a detachment of 212 officers and men, exclusive of

many servants and camp-followers, I only lost one man from sickness, and he was at an out-station.}

"In moments of doubt and anxiety she was always a thoughtful and wise counsellor, and much of my success through nine long years is due to my devoted companion."

un

own

Among our lady travellers. a place of high honour is doubtedly due to Miss Isabella L. Bird, now Mrs Bishop. We have reached one of our country women at last, and she is no discredit to her people. The daughter of a devoted clergyman of the Church of England, and related to the late Archbishop Bird Sumner, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, and other men of mark in the Church, she has all along shared the warm religious feelings of her family circle. Brought up in a quiet rural parish, slight in frame, gentle in spirit, delicate in health, and without brothers in her home to help to develop the spirit of adventure, she seemed the last person in the world to think of roughing it in "unbeaten tracks," or of making us acquainted with some of the most outlandish parts of the globe. In her case the pursuit of health was the first motive to travel. And ever and anon, as a fresh attack of illness has come on her, her remedy has been found. in a new plunge into some terra incognita. She is one of those remarkable women whose frail bodies are kept in vigour by the elasticity of their spirits. When her weak spine is troubling her, and most persons would crave a spell of rest, her spirit cries out, Away with me to the ends of the earth -toss me on the stormy ocean,

mount me on horse or camel, fling me among untamed barbarians, surround me with new and strange ways of life—anything rather than leave me to the monotony of a sickroom.

And, strange to say, the remedy usually succeeds. We remember finding her several years ago, after a turn of illness, bent on a seavoyage and tour in America, but under a difficulty not common to tourists. Her trouble was where to find a slow enough vessel. Far from welcoming the Campania or the Lucania, or whatever might be the crack steamer of the time, she searched for a distant port and a sailing-vessel that would allow her something more than the smell of the sea, and ended by taking a passage in a ship that carried oranges from the Azores to the United States. It has been no uncommon thing for her friends to find her lying prostrate on the sofa, pale, thin, and delicate, and to hear of her a short time afterwards off for a journey of thousands of miles!

When, in middle life, Miss Bird married Dr Bishop, it seemed as if she must now at length "settle down." Unfortunately her married life came to an untimely end. When her husband was taken from her, the medical profession acquired a new and sacred interest in her eyes. Her more recent journeys have been undertaken to a large extent in the interest of medical missions, to the advancement of which she has devoted her life. A mission hospital in a remote part of India is her touching memorial to her husband's memory. Mrs Bishop is much more than a tourist. It has been her aim, especially in her more important journeys, to select fields that are little known, and thus to make substantial and real additions to

our knowledge of the globe and its people. An acute observer, she enters very fully wherever she goes into the life of the people, and records her observations with great fulness. Most of her books are in the form of letters to her sister, written with the desire to convey to her an exact and vivid picture of all she has seen. She is a lady of many accomplishments, and writes with an easy grace. Her conversational gift, though perfectly calm, rivets attention by the sheer interest of her story and the skill with which she tells it. The same qualities make her a good lecturer, at least to those to whom calm and lucid statements are more attractive than rhetorical declamation or the play of humour. A little more of this last quality, however, would be a decided improvement to her style.

"The Englishwoman in America,' the fruit of her girlish years, was not a book of travels, but only the record of a prolonged visit, chiefly to the New England States, in which a more discriminating and appreciative criticism is given of American life and manners than the public had been receiving from Mrs Trollope or Mr Dickens. After a long interval, the pursuit of health led her to the shores of Australasia, but neither New Zealand nor Victoria had the desired effect. Leaving Auckland for San Francisco in the beginning of 1873, she was asked by a lady whose son was in a dying state, to land with him at Honolulu, and remain until he should either rally or die. This she did, intending to remain there but a month; but, she found the group of islands so enchanting that month after month glided past, till after remaining six and a half, it was only the tyranny of a return-ticket about to expire that dragged her away.