Returning to England from Fernando Po, West Africa, I attended at Bath the British Association for September, 1864. The date for the discussion about the Nile Sources, and the claims of the Lake Tanganyika, and a N. Eastern water then unnamed, versus the ‘Victoria Nyanza,’ was fixed on Sept. 16. On the previous day I passed my quondam companion as he sat on the President’s right hand, and I could not but remark the immense change of feature, of expression, and of general appearance which his severe labours, complicated perhaps by deafness and dimness of sight, had wrought in him. We looked at each other of course without signs of recognition. Some one beckoned to him from the bottom of the hall. At 1.30 P. M. he arose, and ejaculating, ‘I can’t stand this any longer!’ he left the room. Three hours afterwards he was a corpse.
Early in the forenoon fixed for what silly tongues called the ‘Nile Duel’ I found a large assembly in the rooms of section E. A note was handed round in silence. Presently my friend Mr Findlay broke the tidings to me. Capt. Speke had lost his life on the yesterday, at 4 P. M., whilst shooting over a cousin’s grounds. He had been missed in the field, and his kinsman found him lying upon the earth, shot through the body close to the heart. He lived only a few minutes, and his last words were a request not to be moved. The calamity had been the more unexpected as he was ever remarkable for the caution with which he handled his weapon. I ever make a point of ascertaining a fellow-traveller’s habits in that matter, and I observed that even when our canoe was shaken and upthrown by the hippopotamus he never allowed his gun to look at him or at others.
Thus perished, in the flower of his years, at the early age of 37, by the merest and most unaccountable accident, an explorer of whom England had reason to be proud, and whose memory will not readily pass away. His sudden decease recalls to mind that of James Bruce of the Blue River, who, after a life of hazard and of dangerous enterprise, perished by the slipping of his foot: unlike the Abyssinian explorer, however, Capt. Speke was not fated to extend his sphere of usefulness or to enjoy the fruits of his labours. With the active and intrepid energy, with the unusual temper, patience, and single-mindedness, with the earnest and indomitable pertinacity, and with the almost heroic determination, which he brought to bear upon everything that he attempted, the achievements of Capt. Speke’s later life would doubtless, had his career run out its time, have thrown into the shade the exploits of his youth.
* * * * *
I will end this chapter—and volume—with a few stanzas written by my wife, who shall be allowed to tell her own tale.
‘The following lines were suggested to me in the studio of the late Mr Edgar George Papworth, of 36, Milton Street, Dorset Square, during the winter of 1864-5.
‘Captain Burton had recently returned from Africa. The annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science had just taken place at Bath, and poor Captain Speke’s sudden death was still fresh in our memories. We had been invited by the artist to look at Captain Speke’s bust, upon which he was then employed. Mr Papworth said to Captain Burton, “I only took the cast after death, and never knew him alive; but you who lived with him so long can surely give me some hints.” Captain Burton, who had learnt something of sculpturing when a boy in Italy, took the sculptor’s pencil from Mr Papworth’s hand, and with a few touches here and there made a perfect likeness and expression. As I stood by, I was very much impressed by this singular coincidence.’
A MOULDED mask at my feet I found,
With the drawn-down mouth and the deepen’d eye,
More lifeless still than the marbles ’round—