‘I have not been able to discover when or how the parcel was received, nor how the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was to send it to the Foreign Office, except through Government. I therefore send it to you, and perhaps you would send it to the Under Secretary at the India House, with the above explanation, and request that it be sent to its direction. I have, &c., (Signed) C. RAVENSCROFT, Acting Chief Secretary to Government.’ * * * * * * * It is not a little curious that, as my first report upon the subject of Zanzibar was diverted from its destination, so the ‘Letts’ containing my excursions to Sa’adani and to Kilwa also came to temporary grief. Annexed by a skipper on the West African coast, appropriated by his widow, and exposed at a London bookseller’s stall (labelled outside, ‘Burton Original MS. Diary in Africa’), it was accidentally left by the buyer, an English Artillery officer, in the hall of one of H. M.’s Ministers of State. Here being recognized, it was kindly and courteously returned to me. The meteorological observations made by me on the East African seaboard and at other places during the discovery of the Lakes were also, I would remark, mislaid for years, deep hidden in certain pigeon-holes at Whitehall Place. May these three accidents be typical of the fate of my East African Expedition, which, so long the victim of uncontrollable circumstance, appears now, after many weary years, likely to emerge from the shadow which overcast it, and to occupy the position which I ever desired to see it conquer.