By her wise foresight in providing a steamer,
and pushing on up the river after the severest domestic
affliction--the loss by fever of her two aunts--till after
she was assured by Speke and Grant that they had already
discovered in Victoria Nyanza the sources she sought, she
proved herself a genuine explorer, and then by trying to go
S.W. on land. Had they not, honestly enough of course, given
her their mistaken views, she must inevitably, by boat or on
land, have reached the head-waters of the Nile. I cannot
conceive of her stopping short of Bangweolo. She showed such
indomitable pluck she must be a descendant of Van Tromp, who
swept the English Channel till killed by our Blake, and whose
tomb every Englishman who goes to Holland is sure to visit.
"We great he-beasts say, 'Exploration was not becoming her
sex.' Well, considering that at least 1600 years have elapsed
since Ptolemy's informants reached this region, and kings,
emperors, and all the great men of antiquity longed in vain
to know the fountains, exploration does not seem to have
become the other sex either.
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