This Beautiful Project, I Am Sorry To Say, Was Doomed From The
First; For I Did Not Get The œ2500
Grant of money or appointment
to the command until fully nine months had elapsed, when I wrote
to Colonel Rigby,
Our Consul at Zanzibar, to send on the first
instalment of property towards the interior.
As time then advanced, the Indian branch of the Government very
graciously gave me fifty artillery carbines, with belts and
sword-bayonets attached, and 20,000 rounds of ball ammunition.
They lent me as many surveying instruments as I wanted; and,
through Sir George Clerk, put at my disposal some rich presents,
in gold watches, for the chief Arabs who had so generously
assisted us in the last expedition. Captain Grant, hearing that
I was bound on this journey, being an old friend and brother
sportsman in India, asked me to take him with me, and his
appointment was settled by Colonel Sykes, then chairman of a
committee of the Royal Geographical Society, who said it would
only be "a matter of charity" to allow me a companion.
Much at the same time, Mr Petherick, an ivory merchant, who had
spent many years on the Nile, arrived in England, and
gratuitously offered, as it would not interfere with his trade,
to place boats at Gondokoro, and send a party of men up the White
River to collect ivory in the meanwhile, and eventually to assist
me in coming down. Mr Petherick, I may add, showed great zeal for
geographical exploits, so, as I could not get money enough to do
all that I wished to accomplish myself, I drew out a project for
him to ascend the stream now known as the Usua river (reported to
be the larger branch of the Nile), and, if possible, ascertain
what connection it had with my lake. This being agreed to, I did
my best, through the medium of Earl de Grey (then President of
the Royal Geographical Society), to advance him money to carry
out this desirable object.
The last difficulty I had now before me was to obtain a passage
to Zanzibar. The Indian Government had promised me a vessel of
war to convey me from Aden to Zanzibar, provided it did not
interfere with the public interests. This doubtful proviso
induced me to apply to Captain Playfair, Assistant-Political at
Aden, to know what Government vessel would be available; and
should there be none, to get for me a passage by some American
trader. The China war, he assured me, had taken up all the
Government vessels, and there appeared no hope left for me that
season, as the last American trader was just then leaving for
Zanzibar. In this dilemma it appeared that I must inevitably
lose the travelling season, and come in for the droughts and
famines. The tide, however, turned in my favour a little; for I
obtained, by permission of the Admiralty, a passage in the
British screw steam-frigate Forte, under orders to convey Admiral
Sir H. Keppel to his command at the Cape; and Sir Charles Wood
most obligingly made a request that I should be forwarded thence
to Zanzibar in one of our slaver-hunting cruisers by the earliest
opportunity.
On the 27th April, Captain Grant and I embarked on board the new
steam-frigate Forte, commanded by Captain E. W. Turnour, at
Portsmouth; and after a long voyage, touching at Madeira and Rio
de Janeiro, we arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on the 4th July.
Here Sir George Grey, the Governor of the colony, who took a warm
and enlightened interest in the cause of the expedition, invited
both Grant and myself to reside at his house. Sir George had
been an old explorer himself - was once wounded by savages in
Australia, much in the same manner as I had been in the Somali
country - and, with a spirit of sympathy, he called me his son,
and said he hoped I would succeed. Then, thinking how best he
could serve me, he induced the Cape Parliament to advance to the
expedition a sum of œ300, for the purpose of buying baggage-
mules; and induced Lieut.-General Wynyard, the Commander-in-
Chief, to detach ten volunteers from the Cape Mounted Rifle Corps
to accompany me. When this addition was made to my force, of
twelve mules and ten Hottentots, the Admiral of the station
placed the screw steam-corvette Brisk at my disposal, and we all
sailed for Zanzibar on the 16th July, under the command of
Captain A. F. de Horsey - the Admiral himself accompanying us, on
one of his annual inspections to visit the east coast of Africa
and the Mauritius. In five days more we touched at East London,
and, thence proceeding north, made a short stay at Delagoa Bay,
where I first became acquainted with the Zulu Kafirs, a naked set
of negroes, whose national costume principally consists in having
their hair trussed up like a hoop on the top of the head, and an
appendage like a thimble, to which they attach a mysterious
importance. They wear additional ornaments, charms, &c., of
birds' claws, hoofs and horns of wild animals tied on with
strings, and sometimes an article like a kilt, made of loose
strips of skin, or the entire skins of vermin strung close
together. These things I have merely noticed in passing, because
I shall hereafter have occasion to allude to a migratory people,
the Watuta, who dressing much in the same manner, extend from
Lake N'yassa to Uzinza, and may originally have been a part of
this same Kafir race, who are themselves supposed to have
migrated from the regions at present occupied by the Gallas. Next
day (the 28th) we went on to Europa, a small island of coralline,
covered with salsolacious shrubs, and tenanted only by sea-birds,
owls, finches, rats, and turtles. Of the last we succeeded in
turning three, the average weight of each being 360 lb., and we
took large numbers of their eggs.
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