To Return To The Subject Of East African Discovery.
Commodore Lushington
and Dr. Carter met in order to concert some measures for forwarding the
plans of a Somali Expedition.
It was resolved to associate three persons,
Drs. Carter and Stocks, and an officer of the Indian navy: a vessel was
also warned for service on the coast of Africa. This took place in the
beginning of 1851: presently Commodore Lushington resigned his command,
and the project fell to the ground.
The author of these pages, after his return from El Hajaz to Bombay,
conceived the idea of reviving the Somali Expedition: he proposed to start
in the spring of 1854, and accompanied by two officers, to penetrate _via_
Harar and Gananah to Zanzibar. His plans were favourably received by the
Right Hon. Lord Elphinstone, the enlightened governor of the colony, and
by the local authorities, amongst whom the name of James Grant Lumsden,
then Member of Council, will ever suggest the liveliest feelings of
gratitude and affection. But it being judged necessary to refer once more
for permission to the Court of Directors, an official letter bearing date
the 28th April 1854 was forwarded from Bombay with a warm recommendation.
Lieut. Herne of the 1st Bombay European Regiment of Fusileers, an officer
skilful in surveying, photography, and mechanics, together with the
writer, obtained leave, pending the reference, and a free passage to Aden
in Arabia. On the 23rd August a favourable reply was despatched by the
Court of Directors.
Meanwhile the most painful of events had modified the original plan. The
third member of the Expedition, Assistant Surgeon J. Ellerton Stocks,
whose brilliant attainments as a botanist, whose long and enterprising
journeys, and whose eminently practical bent of mind had twice recommended
him for the honors and trials of African exploration, died suddenly in the
prime of life. Deeply did his friends lament him for many reasons: a
universal favourite, he left in the social circle a void never to be
filled up, and they mourned the more that Fate had not granted him the
time, as it had given him the will and the power, to trace a deeper and
more enduring mark upon the iron tablets of Fame.
No longer hoping to carry out his first project, the writer determined to
make the geography and commerce of the Somali country his principal
objects. He therefore applied to the Bombay Government for the assistance
of Lieut. William Stroyan, I. N., an officer distinguished by his surveys
on the coast of Western India, in Sindh, and on the Panjab Rivers. It was
not without difficulty that such valuable services were spared for the
deadly purpose of penetrating into Eastern Africa. All obstacles, however,
were removed by their ceaseless and energetic efforts, who had fostered
the author's plans, and early in the autumn of 1854, Lieut. Stroyan
received leave to join the Expedition. At the same time, Lieut. J. H.
Speke, of the 46th Regiment Bengal N. I., who had spent many years
collecting the Fauna of Thibet and the Himalayan mountains, volunteered to
share the hardships of African exploration.
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