I Have Skimmed Over My Travels Thus Far, Because These Do Not Concern The Reader.

They led over many lands, but this book is only a narrative of my search after Livingstone, the great African traveller.

It is an Icarian flight of journalism, I confess; some even have called it Quixotic; but this is a word I can now refute, as will be seen before the reader arrives at the "Finis."

I have used the word "soldiers" in this book. The armed escort a traveller engages to accompany him into East Africa is composed of free black men, natives of Zanzibar, or freed slaves from the interior, who call themselves "askari," an Indian name which, translated, means "soldiers." They are armed and equipped like soldiers, though they engage themselves also as servants; but it would be more pretentious in me to call them servants, than to use the word "soldiers;" and as I have been more in the habit of calling them soldiers than "my watuma" - servants - this habit has proved too much to be overcome. I have therefore allowed the word "soldiers " to appear, accompanied, however, with this apology.

But it must be remembered that I am writing a narrative of my own adventures and travels, and that until I meet Livingstone, I presume the greatest interest is attached to myself, my marches, my troubles, my thoughts, and my impressions. Yet though I may sometimes write, "my expedition," or "my caravan," it by no means follows that I arrogate to myself this right.

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