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it happen. I await your visit. Sincerely yours,
    Jonah Childs

    It was a remarkable missive. Then again I was soon to learn this was a remarkable man. Well do I recall that wondrous first meeting between us in Clapham, Mr. Childs’s eyes shining with excitement as he asked his questions, which he did with such enthusiastic rapidity that I hardly began to reply to one when I would find myself met with its successor. Such was his passion to see the Scriptures defended that I feared he might be moved even to tears. After only a few minutes’ discussion he began scribbling a list of estimated costs, which he added together with a sudden flourish.
    ‘‘This I will gladly meet, and more besides if it should prove necessary.’’
    I was dumbfounded, nothing less. Never before had I witnessed such mighty, and godly, generosity. I endeavoured to convey my humble thanks.
    ‘‘You must go, of course,’’ he then declared. ‘‘You came up with the notion. You know the rocks. You must go.’’
    It was a suggestion I had not considered. I was most honoured at the thought and yet, if truth be told, I was most doubtful. I had never journeyed overseas before, nor even travelled on a ship, excepting river ferries. There was also my dear wife to consider. In the event it was she, brave little poppet, who decided the matter. When, the next day, I assured her I would happily remain with her in peaceful Yorkshire if that were her wish, she quite threw up her hands.
    ‘‘But you must go, Geoffrey. It is your destiny. Don’t you worry about me. I have the children, and my sister too, to keep me company.’’
    Thereafter matters proceeded apace. Mr. Childs felt that a man ofexperience was required to lead the expedition and, after some consideration, the task was awarded to Major Henry Stanford: a tall, quick-eyed soldier, who had battled variously against Chinese pirates, Sikh warriors and more, as well as famously traversing Mesopotamia entirely alone, enduring such great hardship that he had been obliged to eat his own mule. He knew nothing of geology, it was true, and little of the Scriptures, but this aside, I supposed he would make a most adequate leader. He lost no time transforming our aspirations into reality, making arrangements and purchasing stores. It was he who chartered our ship, the
Caroline
. This was a most excellent vessel, which had been constructed to carry naval stores, and had served in the recent war with Russia before being sold into private hands, while her crew had as fine a military history as their craft, being a robust and fearless assembly of Portsmouth men.
    Ten more days and we would be lodged within her, and our expedition would have begun. The very thought fired me with excitement as the cab made its way across London. I had directed the driver to take me first to Hampstead, to the home of Timothy Renshaw, the expedition’s botanist, who Jonah Childs had requested I bring. Timothy’s father was a dour man of modest origins who had made himself a fortune from the manufacturing of plaster, and the family home was large, not to say ostentatious. Timothy’s mother, by contrast, was a most cultured woman of good Herefordshire family, and it was she I was shown in to see. I observed she seemed a touch uneasy.
    ‘‘Timothy is just coming. I’m afraid he has been feeling a little unwell.’’
    The fellow shuffled into the room soon afterwards, looking wan, with discernible shadows beneath his eyes. His appearance confirmed my suspicion that his suffering was wholly self-inflicted. The boy had quite a reputation for ill living, being a great worry to his parents for his late nights upon the town, and I assumed these excesses were not unconnected with his parents’ eagerness to have him join our expedition.
    ‘‘What’s up?’’ he asked, without offering so much as a good morning to myself. When I explained that his company was expected at Clapham, and shortly, he put on the dreariest of voices.