As for me, I know not what I lack to make me happy. I have health, youth, and a free spirit; but, what to-morrow may bring forth, I cannot tell. Therefore, take care to keep that health. The knowledge that every moment makes me older, the fluctuations to which the spirit is subject, hour by hour, for ever remind me that happiness is not to be secured in this world, except for brief periods; and, for a houseless, friendless fellow like myself, those periods when we cast off all thought which tends to vex the mind cannot, by any possibility, be frequent. But, if to be happy is to be without sorrow, fear, anxiety, doubt, I have been happy; and, if I could find an island in mid-ocean, remote from the presence or reach of man, with a few necessaries sufficient to sustain life, I might be happy yet; for then I could forget what reminds me of unhappiness, and, when death came, I should accept it as a long sleep and rest. But, as this wish of mine cannot be gratified, I turn to what many will do to-day; meditate; think with regret of all the things left undone that ought to have been done; of words said that ought not to have been uttered; of vile thoughts that stained the mind; and resolve, with God’s help, to be better, nobler, purer. May Heaven assist all who wish the same, and fill their hearts with goodness! January 7th, 1869. Six days of this New Year are already gone, and one of the resolutions which I made on the first day I have been compelled to break. I had mentally resolved to smoke no more, from a belief that it was a vice, and that it was my duty to suppress it. For six days I strove against the hankering, though the desire surged up strongly. To-day I have yielded to it, as the effort to suppress it absorbed too much of my time, and now I promise myself that I shall be moderate, in order to soothe the resentment of my monitor. * * * * * Still no news of Livingstone, and scant hope of any! Stanley critically examines Aden; notes its unfortified condition, its importance when once the Suez Canal is finished; and sketches its future possibilities as a great distributing centre, and the case of a cheap railway into the heart of Arabia. After ten weeks at Aden, February 1st, ‘I am relieved, at last!’ And so he turns his back on Livingstone, who is still deep in the wilds of Africa. As he mixes with civilised men in his travels, he is sometimes struck by their triviality, sometimes by their malicious gossip. * * * * * February 9th, 1869. At Alexandria. Dined with G. D. and his wife. Among the guests was one named J----. This young man is a frequent diner here, and the gossips of Alexandria tell strange things. Truly the English, with all their Christianity, and morals, and good taste, and all that sort of thing, are to be dreaded for their propensity to gossip, for it is always malicious and vile. Oh, how I should like to discover my island, and be free of them!