AN EXPLORER'S END

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13743, 26 May 1910, Page 6

AN EXPLORER'S END

The Antarctic is not the only part of the world that draws the explorer back to it again from tho delights of civilisation, and Sir Ernest Shackleton and his' men are not the only proofs that tho spirit of adventure is not yet dead in Britons. Captain Boyd Alexander, whose death in Central Africa is recorded this morning, won laurels in African exploration a few years ago, and might well have preferred to resume his military life on his return. But -Africa called him again, and he returned to her, to fall a victim to the savage natives of tho hostile and littleKnown region of the Central Soudan. Like tho late Mr Brooks, who, in endeavouring to increase our knowledge of the wilds of Southern China, found a grave there, Captain Alexander probably found regimental duties too dull compared with the delights of tlva open sky and the wilderness. His journey across Africa in 1901-1907 was one of the meist remarkable of recent j ears. Starting from tho West African Coast, he hoped to come out at Mombasa, but being unable to reach the Great Lakes with his impedimenta, he struck north, crossed the Soudan, and reached Port Soudan on the Red Sea. On the way ho buried two ot his English companions, while the third had to turn back. Though tho expedition achieved nothing sensational, it did a vast amount of extremely valuable survey work, and added considerably to the world's knowledge of the topography and natural history of one of the dark regions of the earth. Not only was Captain Alexander an explorer of distinction, but ho possessed a literary stylo of raro excellence. It seems a pitiful wastefor a young man of such brilliant parts to die at the hands of fanatics in Central Africa. There is so much to bo done elsewhere, and one has the feeling that in the days before us the Empire will want the services of every available man of this type. It was said of Colonel Burnaby, that he should not h.avc J -elted in the desert, slain by a "wandering spear." but should have lived to oppose- the Ru&siaus in the great attack on India that in thoso days was regarded as inevitable. Similarly, one cannot help feeling that Brooks and Alexander were worthy of a better fate than to die as they did in the wilds. But losses like these are the inevitable price of geographical knowledge, and until the last square mile of unknown country is surveyed men will risk their lives in wresting secrets from dark places.