did. He was then fast rising, but had not yet reached the fulness of his

subsequent height in popular reputation, which is perhaps the time in the mental development of a man at which his character shows at its brightest.

My wife and I found a frequent travelling-companion in Miss Brandram, afterwards the wife and subsequently the widow of A. MacLennan, the writer on various phases of prehistoric societies, _Marriage by Capture_, _Totems_, etc. She was a great friend to both of us; a companion and kind nurse to my wife when she was ill, an excellent walking companion to myself, and always ready to be of service. She helped me much in revising some of my earlier writings, especially the last edition of my _Art of Travel_.

During her widowhood Mrs. MacLennan travelled with us again, but at last a disaster occurred at a time when we were living at Cimiez, above Nice. There is a high-level railway from Nice to Grasse that passes the little station of the Saut de Loup, a waterfall about an hour’s walk (I think) from the station, which we wanted much to see. The foot-path runs along a hillside and is perfectly good, but too narrow for two persons to walk abreast. In more than one place a streamlet cascades over it. Near its destination the path is crossed by a more considerable streamlet running among stones, that make stepping-stones near enough to the surface to prevent the feet being much wetted while crossing it, and which any one accustomed to mountain walking would trip over without remark. The pathway was broader at this point, and the stream after crossing it fell into a precipice, at the bottom of which ran the river Loup. Mrs. MacLennan was walking first, and, owing to some strange accident, missed a stone or tripped, and fell heavily on her side, where she lay motionless in the water as though shot dead. I helped her to rise, but she was in great pain. It was difficult to set her on her feet, for the position was not one to stagger safely in, the precipice being much too near.

With great pluck, she went a few steps onward to see the fall, and then the long return walk had to be achieved. She was confined for a long time to bed, and far from fit to travel when she left us. The injury was followed by an internal complaint, of which, after much suffering at her own home, she died.

Few have been more thorough in their friendship to my wife and myself than Sir Rutherford and Lady Alcock and her daughter by a previous marriage, Miss Lowder, now Lady Pelly. I was well acquainted with much of Sir Rutherford’s work in China and Japan before I had the pleasure of knowing him personally, because the Foreign Office used to forward those of his dispatches that were of geographical interest to the Royal Geographical Society, where, for want of a better person, they were generally referred to myself. Sir Rutherford’s life was eventful; first as an army surgeon in Spain under Sir De Lacy Evans, then Consul in China, then our first Minister in Japan, then Ambassador to China. Lady Alcock seconded him in charge of the well-being of his large staff, with a kindliness that was proverbial. On their return to England they became social favourites from the highest in rank to the lowest, being singularly acceptable through their own attractive qualities, and widely known through reports of their largely unostentatious charitable acts. Sir Rutherford was President of the Royal Geographical Society for the usual term, and we saw much of him and his family at various times, eating our Christmas dinner with them on three or four occasions.

Of many pleasant meetings I will only mention one, when we, in company with Sir Lewis and Lady Pelly, made an interesting tour in the South of France from Royat, by that curious natural formation Montpelier le Vieux, round to Avignon. The valley of the Tarn had recently been made accessible to tourists, and I was particularly desirous of seeing its wonders, so our party stopped at Millau to give me an opportunity of going to the Tarn River for a long day by myself. First some distance had to be travelled by railroad, then some miles by a two-wheeled vehicle across the bare Causses, a high limestone upland, down to the beautifully clear Tarn. Every shower that falls on the Causses percolates through deep “swallows,” and finds its way for perhaps 2000 feet vertically through them, issuing from the cliffs as feeders of pure water to the little river.

I was put into a flat-bottomed boat with stalwart boatmen fore and aft, and so dropped down stream. The water was at first so shallow and transparent as to be scarcely visible. The boat seemed to be buoyed in the air above the clean, shingly bottom. So we glided down hour after hour, with vast cliffs on either side clothed sparsely with pre-Rafaelite-looking trees, and with an occasional eagle soaring in the blue sky overhead. Then the river by slow degrees grew broader, deeper, and swifter, and swirled formidably in places, requiring much caution in the boatmen; the evening closed in while we had still some way to go. It was not altogether pleasant, as the punt was not particularly “stiff,” the navigation was difficult, and it was becoming very dark. At length the welcome bridge which betokened our destination loomed high in front. The party from Millau had been there awaiting me till dark, and then left. I was fortunate in securing a trap, wherein to drive the few miles that then separated me from them.

We all went together the next day to Montpelier le Vieux, so called because its rocks look from a distance like the turrets of a weird city on a hilltop. Each rock stands by itself on a carpet of green verdure. Crowds of legends have, of course, clustered round this strange locality. Anyhow, it is an ideal place for a picnic in which to spend the long hours of a sunny day. The whole of the south-west corner of France is full of interest, and the part just mentioned seems quite unique.

I wish I could more adequately and yet appropriately have expressed my affectionate feelings towards the many friends to whom I have made too scanty reference in this chapter.

During the year that followed the death of my wife in 1897, I made a tour with one of her nephews, a Frank Butler, son of Spencer P. Butler. He became engaged to an English lady, a niece of Mrs. MacLennan, while we were touring in Corsica with her party, and married shortly after. Henceforward a niece, Miss Evelyne Biggs, or more strictly speaking a grandniece of my own, granddaughter of my sister Lucy, has lived with me as companion, and I have followed a somewhat similar routine of life, except in being no longer advised by the doctor to try cures, the best means of securing health now being to escape a winter in London.

_Yearly Medallions._—My fancy had been taken long ago by a custom of certain North American Indians, of naming years, each after some characteristic event that had occurred in it.[4] It appears that an annual consultation of Indian chiefs was held, at which the more striking occurrences of the past year were reviewed and one selected as its representative. Thereupon an Indian who was reputed for skill in drawing made a picture or symbol of the event on his buffalo-skin robe. They are as rude in conception and execution as an English child of five years old might draw. Thus the “small-pox year” is symbolically expressed by an elementary design of the head, body, and four limbs of a man dotted over with spots. A robe exists (see page 88-89 of the memoir) in which a sequence of seventy-one years is thus recorded in symbols spirally arranged upon it; it was made by a certain Dacota Indian, called Lone Dog.

I adopted this method to illustrate the events of my own life during part of the time while my wife was still living, but they are too rude for publication. I therefore give recent specimens of these medallions drawn by my niece, which refer to two of the years after she had become my companion.

The picture of 1900 is a view on the Nile, and that of 1903 contains the insignia of the late Pope, in memory of a function in Rome at which we were present; also a picture of the breeding-place of sea birds at the Farn Islands, Northumberland, which we visited. The legends round these medallions hardly require explanation, except that An. Photo, stands for Animal Photography. They are—1900, An. Photo., Venice, Greece, Boer War, Egypt. 1903, Rome, Ischia, Farn Isles, Peppard.

A main reason for giving so full a description of such trifling matters is that the Dacota method may be serviceable in more than one way. It suggests an excellent plan for competition in Art schools, where the choice of two or three characteristics of some particular year might be submitted to the students, and prizes given to those who designed the most appropriate medallions.