What the public ought to know, that have I written; but there are many things that the snarling, cynical, unbelieving, vulgar ought not to know. I write to you and to your friends, and for those who desire more light on Darkest Africa, and for those who can feel an interest in what concerns humanity. My creed has been, is, and will remain so, I hope, to act for the best, think the right thought, and speak the right word, as well as a good motive will permit. When a mission is entrusted to me and my conscience approves it as noble and right, and I give my promise to exert my best powers to fulfil this according to the letter and spirit, I carry with me a Law, that I am compelled to obey. If any associated with me prove to me by their manner and action that this Law is equally incumbent on them, then I recognize my brothers. Therefore it is with unqualified delight that I acknowledge the priceless services of my friends Stairs, Jephson, Nelson and Parke, four men whose devotion to their several duties were as perfect as human nature is capable of. As a man's epitaph can only be justly written when he lies in his sepulchre, so I rarely attempted to tell them during the journey, how much I valued the ready and prompt obedience of Stairs, that earnestness for work that distinguished Jephson, the brave soldierly qualities of Nelson, and the gentle, tender devotion paid by our Doctor to his ailing patients; but now that the long wanderings are over, and they have bided and laboured ungrudgingly throughout the long period, I feel that my words are poor indeed when I need them to express in full my lasting obligations to each of them.