journey early in April, 1864, but owing to illness and the disturbed condition of the country he did not reach Gondokoro until March 23, 1865. On June 21 he wrote home from Khartoum:—"There is no longer any mystery connected with the Nile, nor any necessity for expeditions on that head, unless it be desired to explore the great lake I have discovered—the Albert N'yanza. This can only be done by building a vessel for the purpose on the lake. I shall never undertake another expedition in Africa. For the last three years I have not had one day of enjoyment; nothing but anxieties, difficulties, fatigue, and fever...... I should not have been contented to see a foreigner share the honour of discovering the Nile sources with Speke and Grant: it happily belongs to England." The Royal Geographical Society now awarded to him its Victoria Gold Medal, and on his return to England in 1866 he was created M.A. of the University of Cambridge and received the honour of knighthood. In Sept. 1869, he undertook the command of an expedition to Central Africa under the auspices of the Khedive, who placed at his disposal a force of 1500 picked Egyptian troops, and intrusted him for four years with absolute and uncontrolled power of life and death. He undertook to subdue the African wilderness, and to annex it to the civilized world; to destroy the slave trade, and to establish regular commerce in its place; to open up to civilization those vast African lakes which are the equatorial reservoirs of the Nile; and to add the whole of the countries which border on that river to the kingdom of the Pharaohs. Sir Samuel, having first received from the Sultan the Order of the Medjidie and the rank of Pasha and Major-general, left Cairo with his party on Dec. 2, 1869, Lady Baker, as in former journeys, accompanying him. He returned in 1873 and reported the complete success of the expedition. Sir Samuel is the author of "The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon," 1854, new edit. 1874; "Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon," 1855, new edit. 1874; "The Albert N'yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, and Explorations of the Nile Sources," 2 vols. 1866, translated into French and German; "The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia and the Sword Hunters of the Hamram Arabs," 1867, 4th edit. 1871; "Cast up by the Sea," a Story, 1869, translated into French by Madame P. Fernand under the title of "L'Enfant du Naufrage"; "Ismaïlia: a Narrative of the Expedition to Central Africa for the Suppression of the Slave Trade; arranged by Ismail, Khedive of Egypt," 2 vols. 1874. In 1879, shortly after the British occupation of Cyprus, he visited every portion of the island to thoroughly investigate its resources, the results of which journey he published in a volume entitled "Cyprus as I saw it in 1879." From thence he proceeded upon various researches through Syria, India, Japan, and America. Sir Samuel is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of London, and an honorary member of the Geographical Societies of Paris, Berlin, Italy, and America. He has received the Grande Médaille d'Or of the Société de Géographie de Paris. He is a Deputy-Lieutenant of Gloucestershire and J.P. of Devon; he has the Orders of the Osmanïe of the second class and the Medjidie of the second and third classes.
BALFOUR, Francis Maitland, M.A., F.R.S., is a son of the late Mr. James Maitland Balfour, of Whittinghame, Preston-kirk, and was born in 1851. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated in the Natural Science Tripos in 1873, being placed second in the first class. He was elected a fellow of Trinity on the first occasion on which he was eligible—viz.,
