The First Time We Sent Men For Them The Governor Declared Himself Too Sick To Attend To Such Matters, But The Second Day They Were Surrendered, With A Request That The Doctor Would Not Be Very Angry At Their Condition, As The White Ants Had Destroyed Everything.

The stores this man had detained at Unyanyembe were in a most sorry state.

The expenses were prepaid for their carriage to Ujiji, but the goods had been purposely detained at this place by Sayd bin Salim since 1867 that he might satisfy his appetite for liquor, and probably fall heir to two valuable guns that were known to be with them. The white ants had not only eaten up bodily the box in which the guns were packed, but they had also eaten the gunstocks. The barrels were corroded, and the locks were quite destroyed. The brandy bottles, most singular to relate, had also fallen a prey to the voracious and irresistible destroyers the white ants - and, by some unaccountable means, they had imbibed the potent Hennessy, and replaced the corks with corn-cobs. The medicines had also vanished, and the zinc pots in which they had been snugly packed up were destroyed by corrosion. Two bottles of brandy and one small zinc case of medicines only were saved out of the otherwise utter wreck.

I also begged the Doctor to send to Sheikh Sayd, and ask him if he had received the two letters despatched by him upon his first arrival at Ujiji for Dr. Kirk and Lord Clarendon; and if he had forwarded them to the coast, as he was desired to do.

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