the people are of a very different and far superior race to those among whom the journey had lain since leaving Kazeh. Here the people are no longer of purely African blood, but are descendants of the ancient Abyssinians, and bear traces of their descent from the children of Shem as well as from those of Ham. Their own traditions agree with this. They record their migration from the north. They are, moreover, a pastoral people, as were the ancient Abyssinians; whereas the negro aborigines whom they subjugated were agricultural; while the fact of the mixed origin of the race is curiously preserved in the traditions that in ancient times the people were one half white and one half black, and that one side of each person's hair was straight, while the other half was woolly like that of the negro. So the source of the Nile is honoured by being surrounded by a population of higher intelligence and capacity than any among whom our travellers had hitherto been.

The first of these friendly kingdoms or tribes around the lake, among whom Captain Speke sojourned, was that of Karagwé; and its king showed much inquisitiveness about European ways and things. Had the Queen of England gunpowder enough to blow up all Africa? was one of his questions. He was anxious to know if Captain Speke could tell him what became of the old suns? what was the reason why the moon was always making faces at the earth? It is not a little curious thus to meet with the parallel to the old question of our childish games, "Where do the old moons go to?" put seriously by an African potentate to an English officer. The King of Karagwe had heard of England from the ivory dealers who had visited his country; and, in their way, these ivory dealers seem to be the small pioneers of civilization, the distributers of information from the great world without to these isolated populations, hitherto shut up for thousands of years in the centre of their almost impassable continent. But the most important, most intelligent, and best governed people, were those of Uganda, the next country after passing through Karagwé, and that which immediately surrounds the south-western end of Lake Victoria Nyanza. On Speke's quitting Karagwé, its king sent messengers beforehand to Rumanika, the King of Uganda, to announce his coming. Accordingly, the captain and his party were met upon their way by the messengers of Rumanika, who escorted him upon his journey. The scenery was beautiful, and the population of the district, through which the route lay, paid the visiters a curious mark of respect. All left their huts as the party approached, leaving them stored with provisions. On arriving at the king's residence, a singular scene presented itself. The palace consisted of hundreds of what we should call bell-tents, pitched on the projecting spur of a hill, with thousands of the king's retinue employed in every conceivable occupation, "from performing on musical instruments to feeding the royal chickens." All the presents destined for King Rumanika had been wrapped in chintz. There is etiquette at Uganda as well as in London and Paris, and to present anything naked to King Rumanika would be as violent a breach of decorum as to turn your back upon the Queen after being presented. Indeed, the

manners and customs of Uganda must have formed a curious study for Captain Speke and his comrades. Before the king, no one is allowed to stand; the posture of respect in Uganda is to sit upon the ground! Untidiness in dress (however that offence is to be defined) is punished with death. To be a prince of the blood royal, too, is a very serious thing in Uganda, and the following law must surely contribute to giving all such persons a strong interest in the royal longevity. For, on the king's demise, all his sons are burned, with the exception of three; namely, the successor to the vacant throne, and two others, who are preserved as a reserve stock of royalty, until the new king is crowned. Then one of these two is banished, and the other alone is kept, pensioned off, but suffered to live in Uganda, as a resource in case of an unexpected vacancy.

Like all untaught races, the people of Uganda have an unbounded belief in magic. Theevil eye, so profoundly believed in during the middle ages, and even in our own day in Italy, is a first article of conviction in Uganda. As a protection against its mysterious powers, women crowned with dead lizards, and others carrying bowls of plantain wine, are always kept near to the king. Fidelity to benefactors is a first duty; ingratitude is punished with death and even to omit the customary form of thanking anyone who does anything for you is punishable. Such are some of the traits of this people, whose territory Captain Speke was now for the second time approaching. On his arrival he sent notice to King Rumanika, desiring an interview. The king returned for answer, that the captain must sit down on the ground and wait until the king was at leisure. Captain Speke replied, that he, too, was a prince; that he was not accustomed either to sit upon the ground or to wait for anyone; and he pressed forward, to the great horror and fear of all the "courtiers," who kept predicting all kinds of evil to the daring visiter as the result. Arriving before the king, Captain Speke flapped his umbrella in the face of his Majesty and the assembled court, in reply to the warnings which were addressed to him. A proceeding so mysterious as this produced a salutary awe. Captain Speke was suffered to remain. He was no longer required to sit upon the ground, and a compromise was consented to, whereby he was permitted to sit upon a chair, the nearest approach to standing which would be suffered in the royal presence. Thus, the whole court attending, he was received by the king; the women crowned with dead lizards, and bearing bowls of plantain wine, surrounding him, so as to ward off any possible danger from "the evil eye." These singular people share our European custom of saluting by shaking of hands.

Thence the Captain proceeded on his route, and, travelling round the western edge of the lake, found at last the expected gap in the very middle of its northern shore, and there beheld (the first civilized man who had beheld it) "the Nile" take its first spring over a fall of twelve feet, out of the lake of which we have so often spoken. "Ripon Falls," he called it, in honour of the President of the Geographical Society for the year in which the successful expedition was set on foot.

Other outlets, whose streams join ultimately the great stream thus seen,

he conjectures must also exist, but he was not permitted to travel farther along the shore. He had found, however, one great river making its exit. Pursuing his course down this river, he found it curving westward, flowing first between lines of sandstone hills, then tumbling over falls and rapids, then widening out into lagoons, but always navigable except where there are falls. The country dips rapidly toward the north, so that there are many of these interruptions to navigation, just as in the known parts of Upper Egypt. Thus from its very source the Nile bears the same character as in its later course. It is a river of alternate flats and rapids: here overflowing periodically into vast sheets of water, and there dashing over the rapids, or the “cataracts," which we all know so well in the records of Nile voyages in Upper Egypt. So serious, indeed, are its inundations in its earlier course, that among the rumours which led Captain Speke to go in search of it were stories of its carrying away floating islands upon its waters; and, in fact, it does often carry away the wooden huts of the natives, still standing uninjured, upon the wooden platforms on which they rest.

So far as Captain Speke observed it, the main river was joined by many tributaries. The only point that we have to regret is, that, in one place where the course of the river formed an elbow, he was obliged to take a cross route so as to join it again lower down, in consequence of a war prevailing along its actual course. This was the more to be regretted, as he had reason to believe that in the course of this bend would be found another large tributary from another lake, if not also a second lake, through which the Nile itself would be found to pass. With the exception of this bend, the White Nile is now traced from its source in "the Lake District" of the Equatorial Mountain Range of the African continent, past the temples and pyramids of the Pharaohs, to the Mediterranean Sea of our own familiar knowledge.

A MARTYR'S JOYFUL EXPERIENCE.*

DONALD CARGILL, on the scaffold, July 27th, 1681, as he handed his well-used Bible to one of his friends that stood near, gave this testimony :

"I bless the Lord that these thirty years and more I have been at peace with God, and was never shaken loose of it. And now I am as sure of my interest in Christ, and peace with God, as all within this Bible and the Spirit of God can make me. And I am no more terrified at death, or afraid of hell, because of sin, than if I never had sin for all my sins are freely pardoned, and washed thoroughly away, through the precious blood and intercession of Jesus Christ."

The Bible which the martyr used on that occasion is still preserved at Strathmiglo, in Fifeshire; and often is this testimony repeated when the Bible is shown. Reader, is it thus with thy soul?

* Christian Treasury.

151

THE AUTHOR OF HYMN 633,

"HAIL, THOU ONCE DESPISED JESUS!" &c.

JOHN BAKEWELL was born in the year 1721, at Brailsford, in the county of Derby; and was converted when about eighteen years of age, chiefly through the instrumentality of Boston's "Fourfold State," which he most anxiously read at that time. Having obtained the remission of sins, after a true repentance, by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, he was filled with burning charity for the souls of men, and was constrained to proclaim to his fellow-men a present, free, and full salvation from the power of sin, through the sacrificial blood of the Saviour, by whom he had received the atonement. He began to preach the Gospel in his own neighbourhood in 1744, the in which the first Methodist Conference was held; but before he had any formal connexion with Mr. Wesley. At the outset he was exposed to considerable danger. Two or three sons of Belial had threatened great things, and on one occasion they went with the determination to prevent his preaching, and to inflict personal injury upon the servant of Christ. But it pleased God, in whose hands are the hearts of all men, to carry conviction to their consciences, and to make him the honoured instrument of their salvation.

year

Not long after this he removed from Derbyshire to London, where he soon became acquainted with John and Charles Wesley, Augustus M. Toplady, Martin Madan, and others. He was present when Mr. Fletcher received ordination at Whitehall, in the year 1757; and at the close of that service he proceeded in company with the newly-ordained to West-street chapel, where Mr. Wesley was administering the Lord's supper. (See Wesley's Life of Fletcher, "Works," vol. xi., p. 289.)

For many years Mr. Bakewell conducted the Greenwich Royal Park Academy; which he at length gave up to his son-in-law, James Egan, LL.D. As he was then more at liberty, it was his custom to take up his temporary residence in any place where there was an interruption of Methodist ministerial labour, by death, sickness, or any other cause; and he often rendered also considerable pecuniary aid.

He was very well known, and very highly esteemed, in Kent, Bedfordshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, &c. In connexion with a few old college-men in Greenwich Hospital, he was the principal means of introducing Methodism into Greenwich. In the Magazine for 1802, at page 535, Mr. Jeremiah Lacy says: "When I came to Greenwich, I had no knowledge of any person who feared God. I was like a fish out of water. I opened my room, and invited my neighbours to go with me to the throne of grace. It pleased the Lord to open the eyes of some, and break the hearts of others; and having the comfort, through good providence, to find Mr. Bakewell in the town, I recommended them to his fatherly care. He took upon him the kind office, and met us once a week in his own house till the chapel was opened; and his labours have not been in vain in the Lord."

The first regular class was met by this excellent man in his own house;

and that house was for many years open to receive the preachers. Here Mr. Rutherford died.-At an earlier date Mr. Bakewell resided some time at Westminster, where Thomas Olivers spent some time, on a friendly visit; during which he wrote his grand hymn, " To the God of Abraham.” He had been out to a Jewish synagogue, and had been so deeply impressed with what he witnessed there, and especially with the singing of an old Hebrew melody by Signor Leoni, that, on his return, he immediately wrote that sublime composition.

Mr. Bakewell's name does not appear in Mr. Wesley's Journal; but it seems probable that allusion is made to him under the appellation of “a friend." Mr. Wesley dined with him on his wedding-day; and, having been shown, over his house after dinner, characteristically remarked, “Fine enough, in all conscience, for a Methodist!" He is mentioned in the "Chronicles of Methodism," as security for a borrower from the "Lending Society," at the old Foundery. His name appeared, a century ago, on the Methodist Preachers' Plans for London. The one copied in Dr. Smith's "History of Methodism," and extending from October 2d to December 25th, 1803, gives him four appointments: namely, October 2d, Peckham; October 9th, Rotherhithe; October 23d, Woolwich; and December 4th, Deptford.

In the Methodist Magazine for July, 1816, page 537, there is a letter from his pen, on the subject of brotherly love, written when he was more than ninety years of age. It was addressed to one of his intimate friends, a pious Calvinist, with whom he was in the habit of corresponding. He was the *author of several hymns. The one beginning, "Hail, Thou once despised Jesus!" was always known by his family as his composition. It was published in the Rev. Martin Madan's Collection, A.D. 1760, and in the Rev. Augustus M. Toplady's Collection, A.D. 1776. He was intimately acquainted with both these celebrated men; especially with the latter. It may be noted, that the hymn was altered in Toplady's Collection. The fifth line of the original reads, “ Hail, Thou universal Saviour;" in Toplady's revise, "Hail, Thou agonizing Saviour." A line in the second stanza, "Every sin may be forgiven," Toplady renders, "All Thy people are forgiven." This may have been done to elude the Arminian sentiment, by substituting the Calvinistic one. The original, as it appeared in Madan, was published in the Methodist Collection of 1797 as Hymn 103,* and omitted in the edition of 1808. Hence some conversations in Mr. Bakewell's family; on which occasion he quietly observed, "Well, well! perhaps they thought it not worth inserting." In the "Supplement," of 1831, it re-appears; Toplady's version being adopted in the first, second, and fourth stanzas, and Madan's in the third; the fifth being left out. This lyric will doubtless be sung by the church of God as long as the sun and moon endure.

Sixty years ago Mr. Bakewell was residing at Queen Elizabeth Row, Greenwich, with his widowed daughter, Mrs. Egan, and two or three of her children. The late Mrs. Moulton, (wife of the Rev. William Moulton, and mother of the Rev. James and Ebenezer Moulton,) and Mrs. Rosser, (wife