, and finally took up his residence at Liverpool. Her mother, a
Dutch baroness, was the daughter of Admiral van Capellen, who commanded
the Dutch squadron of Lord Exmouth's fleet at the bombardment of Algiers
in 1816. The death of her father while she was still a child, made her
the heiress of vast wealth; but she was fortunate in having in her
mother a prudent and sagacious guardian, who was careful that her
education should in all respects be worthy of her position. She was
introduced at Court at an exceptionally early age, and became a great
favourite of the Queen of Holland. Fate, indeed, seemed to have placed
at her disposal everything which society most values, and to have
enabled her to realize in an unusual degree what Dr. Johnson so happily
described as "the potentialities of wealth." All the enjoyments of
literary and artistic culture, all the pleasures of a refined and
favoured life, all the influence for good or evil that accrues to a
leader of fashion, were commanded by this young lady; and yet, in the
very bloom of maidenhood, she voluntarily set them aside. Whether it was
that an impatient and a restless spirit rebelled against social
conventionalisms, or whether she was actuated by an earnest love of
knowledge, or whether some romance of crushed hope and rejected love was
involved, is not certainly known; but rich, and gifted, and fortunate as
she was, she suddenly disappeared from the Hague about 1859, and after
a brief visit to Norway and a rapid tour to Italy, Constantinople, and
Palestine proceeded to the banks of the Nile. In company with her mother
and her aunt she examined the monuments and antiquities of Egypt, and
then took up her winter residence at Cairo.

This experience of travel sharpened her appetite for adventure. It was a
time when the minds of men were much occupied with the subject of
African exploration, and we need not wonder, therefore, that it
attracted the attention of Alexina Tinne. She appears to have been by
nature of a romantic temperament, with an imagination as lively as her
spirit was undaunted. At Palmyra she had dreamed of a career which
should emulate that of Zenobia. In the Lebanon she had a vision of
installing herself as successor to Lady Hester Stanhope. And now she
conceived the idea of competing for the suffrages of posterity with
Burton and Livingstone, Speke and Baker. To some extent she was
influenced, perhaps, by the wide-spread reputation of Mrs. Petherick,
th