QUALIFICATIONS OF CANDIDATES, 5

scholars of my time, I can cook, do any kind of rough-and-

ready housework, row, fish, shoot, and, I'm sorry to admit,

fight if occasion demands it, and also keep my temper

under almost any provocation. I have the reputation of

being a scholar, and I believe I may say a gentleman. I

forgot to state that I pick up languages rapidly, am a tolerable

connoisseur in art and cookery, play whist, piquet, and chess

well for an amateur, and don't drink or gamble ; and that I am a member of the Church of England, as my father's son

should be." We felt that the field for this gentleman to display his taste

in art as well as in cookery would be somewhat limited in the

countries we proposed visiting, although his pugilistic skill

might prove of value. We, however, fully appreciated the kind

care he was anxious to take of us. His concluding sentence

was most cheering in case of any sinister accident : I am

engaged in devising a series of tests to determine whether peo-

ple are really dead before they are buried ; and Egypt is a

good country to make observations of this sort in."

One applicant wrote of a man whom he eulogized as fol-

lows : It will be found on inquiry, that Dr. is highly

and most respectably connected. He is good-looking though

unassuming, jovial yet refined, and strictly abstemious. He is

about to commence practice for himself. When he does, his

unpretending amenity, simplicity of manners and deportment,

combined with his great acumen and high professional attain-

ments, are sure to meet with success."

We felt that this gentleman's "deportment and unpretend-

ing amenity" would be quite thrown away on the wild tribes

of the Soudan ; and passed on to another letter in which the

writer, after enumerating every place marked on the most

extensive map of the West Coast of Africa yet published, all