In character and temperament Frank Oates was admirably fitted for his work. “I like anything,” he once wrote when at Oxford, “that seems difficult of attainment,”--the very zest of the pursuit proving in such cases its own reward to him. So too, in disposition; he had just the one which recommends itself to strangers. “There was something singularly winning about him,” wrote a friend, upon his death; “that peculiar combination of courage and gentleness, which is one of the finest traits of character.” It was, in fact, this very association of a genial nature with a remarkable openness and candour of disposition, that won for him friends, especially amongst his own countrymen, wherever his lot was cast, and so smoothed his way over many difficulties. And if, as would sometimes happen, he fell amongst unfriendly natives, he preserved himself on such occasions by a seeming show of condescension, and a coolness under danger which commanded their respect. A faithful and accurate observer, but little was lost that came before his notice; and if at the time of his death--in February 1875--he had not realized all that he had hoped from his expedition, he may at least be said to have justified the choice that he had made, and had contributed a measure of faithful labour to the causes of progress and research. On hearing of his death, the Dean of Christ Church, who had always particularly regretted the illness which in earlier life had prematurely closed his University career, wrote of the untimely termination of his later efforts in a spirit of no less concern. “His name,” wrote the Dean at this time, “must be added to the list of those devoted and enterprising Englishmen, who ‘scorn delights and live laborious days,’ who by their frank love of truth and justice have made our name respected from one hemisphere to the other. I retain a dear memory of him,” he concludes, “and grieve to think that so much manly spirit has so soon been quenched.”