DEATH OF A FAMOUS TRAVELLER.

Press, Volume XLV, Issue 7169, 3 October 1888, Page 5

DEATH OF A FAMOUS TRAVELLER.

[PEE PBK3S ASSOCIATION.}

Received October 2nd, 10.20 p.m.

London, October 2.

The death is announced of William Gifford Palgrave, British Minister at Monte Video. W. G. Palgrave was one of the three distinguished sons of the late Sir Francis Palgrave (the others being Mr F. L. PaJgrave, Professor of Poetry, at Oxford, and Mr R. F. D. Palgrave, Clerk to tte House of Commons.) He was born in Westminster January 21th, 1526, and received his education at the Charterhouse. He was Captain and Gold Medallist of his year, and obtained a scholarship at Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduatedß.A.inlß46,takinj2:anrst-class in classics, and a second class in mathematics. The following year he was appointed a second lieutenant in the Bth Bombay Native Infantry. After a short period of service, he became connected with the Order of the Jesuits, and in due course he was admitted to the priesthood. During his engagement with the French and Italian branches of the Society of Jesus he resided in Southern India till 1853; at Rome till the autumn of 1855; and subsequently in Syria and Palestine, where he was actively employed in the interests of the Order till 186t', by which time he had acquired a complete mastery of the Arabic language, both literary and vernacular. In his " Lectures on the Massacres of the Christians in Syria," delivered in Ireland ia 1861, he describes himself as " a poor missionary for fifteen years," and he remarks, " I have myself been a witness of horrors and desolations that chill the very blood to read of; I saw them with my own eyes, heard them with my own ears, and only escaped through the Providence of God from being among the number of the victims." Mr Palgrave was summoned to France in the summer of 1860 by Napoleon lIL, to give an account of the Syrian disturbances and massacres, and he returned to Syria in 1861, charged with the task of exploring Central and Eastern Arabia in the service of the Emperor. This he accomplished in the years 1862 and 1863, traversing the entire Wahabee kingdom, and subsequently the provinces adjacent to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. During his prolonged arid varied residence and journeys in Syria, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, and other regions of the Ottoman East, he acquired such a familiarity with Arabic and the Arabs, that he was looked on by the latter as one of their own leaders and Sheyks; and on several occasions acted as " Imam " and " Khatub " in their mosques. Mr Palgrave, having obtained the permission of the French Emperor, published a work of great merit, entitled ,, Narrative of a Year s Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia (1862-63)," 2 vols, London, 1865, which has been translated into French by M. EL Jouveaux. The reserve necessarily maintained by the author respecting the precise object of his wanderings tended to increase the interest of the public in this remarkable publication. HayIngat lastreturned to Engiand.Mr Palgrave was, after some further stay in France and Germany, sent out by the English Government dn special service for the release of Consul Cameron and the other prisoners in Abyssinia, in July, 1865, and remained in Egypt, by order, till June, 1566, when he returned to England. He was appointed Consul at Soukhoum-Kale July 23rd, 1866, at Trebizond May 20th, 1867, at the Island of St. Thomas, February 19th, 1873, and at Manila (Philippine Islands), April 3rd, 1876; and Consul-General in the Principality of Bulgaria, September 23rd, 1878. His more recent works are: —"Essays on Eastern Questions," 1872; "Hermann Agha: an Eastern Narrative," a novel in 2 vols., 1872, and " Dutch Guiana," an account of a fortnight's stay there, 1876.