in
South Africa by the most unlikely accident of being jolted off the front
seat in a rutty road and crushed to death under the wheel of an
ox-waggon creeping at two miles an hour! This sad event occurred on May
31, 1871: and the newspapers at the time, both British and South
African, fully recorded not only the accident but the heroism of the
brave youth, the kind but unavailing assiduities of friends, and the
municipal honours accorded to him at his funeral, when the mayor and
council, the volunteers and chief inhabitants of King William's Town
(every window shuttered) followed him to the grave, where Archdeacon
Kitton read the solemn service; and some months after, a marble
headstone was placed over his remains. His two brothers have written
some touching stanzas to his memory: but they are private.

I mention all this sadness now by way of publicly acknowledging the
kindness of Archdeacon Kitton and, other friends at King William's Town,
not forgetting a most friendly officer of the American navy, from whom
we have received many excellent letters and presents from all round the
world, ever since he was among the first to break to us the death of my
son, now fifteen years ago: I desire, then, cordially to thank T.G. for
these kindnesses: as also Mr. Robertson, of Brechin, N.B., whose son
was Henry's African comrade, with him at the time of the catastrophe,
and following him to the grave.

Henry having been for good ancestral reasons christened de Beauvoir,
reminds me of a memorable matter of our family history which, as it is
on record, I will here relate. In the days of King James I. (to quote
with pedantic omissions from a pedigree), one Peter de Beauvoir,
descended from a younger branch of the ducal house of Rutland, had an
eldest son, James, whose daughter Rachel married Pierre Martin (my
spiritual sponsor after Martin Luther), and her daughter married a Carey
of Guernsey, whose descendant married my grandfather. Peter's second
son, Richard, married a Priaulx, also related to us, and her daughter
married a Benyon, in Charles II.'s time, whose descendant is now the
millionaire, Sir Richard Benyon de Beauvoir of Reading, &c. &c. Now,
this is the strange fact which has always puzzled me as well as others.
The old De Beauvoir was a very thrifty miser, and died two hundred years
ago possessed of great wealth, which has increased enormously up to our
day, seeing he had landed property in the north of London, now incl