In The Centre Of A Long Mud Wall, Ventilated By Certain
Attempts At Frameless Windows, Guarded By Rough Wooden Bars, We
Perceived A Large Archway With Closed Doors; Above This Entrance
Was A Shield, With A Device That Gladdened My English Eyes:
There
was the British lion and the unicorn!
Not such a lion as I had
been accustomed to meet in his native jungles, a yellow cowardly
fellow, that had often slunk away from the very prey from which
I had driven him, but a real red British lion, that, although
thin and ragged in the unhealthy climate of Khartoum, looked as
though he was pluck to the backbone.
This was the English Consulate. I regarded our lion and unicorn
for a few moments with feelings of veneration; and as Mr.
Petherick, the consul, who was then absent on the White Nile in
search of Speke and Grant, had very kindly begged me to occupy
some rooms in the Consulate, we entered a large courtyard, and
were immediately received by two ostriches that came to meet us;
these birds entertained us by an impromptu race as hard as they
could go round the courtyard, as though performing in a circus.
When this little divertissement was finished, we turned to the
right, and were shown by a servant up a flight of steps into a
large airy room that was to be our residence, which, being well
protected from the sun, was cool and agreeable. Mr. Petherick had
started from Khartoum in the preceding March, and had expected to
meet Speke and Grant in the upper portion of the Nile regions, on
their road from Zanzibar; but there are insurmountable
difficulties in those wild countries, and his expedition met with
unforeseen accidents, that, in spite of the exertions of both
himself, his very devoted wife, Dr. Murie, and two or three
Europeans, drove them from their intended path.
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