You shall have the finest
donkey to ride that is in Unyanyembe. Your wants - you have but
to hint them, and they shall be satisfied. Let the sources of
the Nile go - do you come home and rest; then, after a year's rest,
and restored health, you can return and finish what you have to do."
But ever the answer was, "No, I should like to see my family
very much indeed. My children's letters affect me intensely;
but I must not go home; I must finish my task. It is only the
want of supplies that has detained me. I should have finished
the discovery of the Nile by this, by tracing it to its connection
with either Baker's Lake, or Petherick's branch of the Nile. If
I had only gone one month further, I could have said, 'the work
is done."'
Some of these men who had turned the Doctor back from his
interesting discoveries were yet in Ujiji, and had the Government
Enfield rifles in their hands, which they intended to retain until
their wages had been paid to them; but as they had received $60
advance each at Zanzibar from the English Consul, with the
understanding entered into by contract that they should follow
their master wherever he required them to go; and as they had
not only not gone where they were required to proceed with him,
but had baffled and thwarted him, it was preposterous that a few
men should triumph over the Doctor, by keeping the arms given to
him by the Bombay Government.
