PREFACE en ® — In making public the pages of a manuscript book which—with many lapses—was kept by my father during the last seventeen years of his life, it has been thought welt to preface them by a short biographical memoir. Material for anything fuller or more satis- factory was not forthcoming, even had it been desir- able. Little or no record had been kept of a life singularly full of adventure and interest; and, besides, that the notion of a biography wa3 distasteful to him was well known in his more intimate circle. It has therefore been possible only to touch lhghtly on the principal events of his career, and it is hoped that the inadequacy and poorness of the result may be leniently regarded. In endeavouring to note some of the most striking features of my father’s character, I have tried to avoid panegyric—a restriction rendered more