“‘Yes, sir.’
“I found the rear column a terrible wreck. Out of two hundred and fifty-seven men there were only seventy-one remaining. Out of seventy-one only fifty-two, on mustering them, seemed fit for service, and these mostly were scarecrows. The advance had performed the march from Yambuya to Bunalya in sixteen days, despite native opposition. The rear column performed the same distance in forty-three days. According to Mr. Bonny, during the thirteen months and twenty days that had elapsed since I had left Yambuya, the record is only one of disaster, desertion, and death. I have not the heart to go into the details, many of which are incredible, and, indeed, I have not the time, for, excepting Mr. Bonny, I have no one to assist me in reorganizing the expedition. There are still far more loads than I can carry, at the same time articles needful are missing. For instance, I left Yambuya with only a short campaigning kit, leaving my reserve of clothing and personal effects in charge of the officers. In December some deserters from the advance column reached Yambuya to spread the report that I was dead. They had no papers with them, but the officers seemed to accept the report of these deserters as a fact, and in January Mr. Ward, at an officers’ mess meeting, proposed that my instructions should be cancelled. The only one who appears to have dissented was Mr. Bonny. Accordingly, my personal kit, medicines, soap, candles, and provisions were sent down the Congo as ‘superfluities!’ Thus, after making this immense personal sacrifice to relieve them and cheer them up, I find myself naked, and deprived of even the necessaries of life in Africa. But, strange to say, they have kept two hats and four pairs of boots, a flannel jacket; and I propose to go back to Emin Pasha and across Africa with this truly African kit. Livingstone, poor fellow! was all in patches when I met him, but it will be the reliever himself who will be in patches this time. Fortunately not one of my officers will envy me, for their kits are intact—it was only myself that was dead.
“I pray you to say that we were only eighty-two days from the Albert Lake to Banalya, and sixty-one from Fort Bodo. The distance is not very great—it is the people who fail one. Going to Nyanza we felt as though we had the tedious task of dragging them; on returning each man knew the road, and did not need any stimulus. Between the Nyanza and here we only lost three men—one of which was by desertion. I brought a hundred and thirty-one Zanzibaris here, and left fifty-nine at Fort Bodo—total, one hundred and ninety men out of three hundred and eighty-nine; loss, fifty per cent. At Yambuya I left two hundred and fifty-seven men; there are only seventy-one left, ten of whom will never leave this camp—loss over two hundred and seventy per cent. This proves that, though the sufferings of the advance were unprecedented, the mortality was not so great as in camp at Yambuya. The survivors of the march are all robust, while the survivors of the rear column are thin and most unhealthy-looking.
“I have thus rapidly sketched out our movements since June 28th, 1887. I wish I had the leisure to furnish more details, but I cannot find the time. I write this amid the hurry and bustle of departure, and amid constant interruptions. You will, however, have gathered from this letter an idea of the nature of the country traversed by us. We were a hundred and sixty days in the forest—one continuous, unbroken, compact forest. The grass-land was traversed by us in eight days. The limits of the forest along the edge of the grass-land are well marked. We saw it extending northeasterly, with its curves and bays and capes, just like a sea-shore. Southwesterly it preserved the same character. North and south the forest area extends from Nyangwe to the southern borders of the Monbuttu; east and west it embraces all from the Congo, at the mouth of the Aruwimi, to about east longitude 29°-40°. How far west beyond the Congo the forest reaches I do not know. The superficial extent of the tract thus described—totally covered by forest—is two hundred and forty-six thousand square miles. North of the Congo, between Upoto and the Aruwimi, the forest embraces another twenty thousand square miles.
“Between Yambuya and the Nyanza we came across five distinct languages. The last is that which is spoken by the Wanyoro, Wanyankori, Wanya, Ruanda, and people of Karangwe and Ukerwee.
“The land slopes gently from the crest of the plateau above the Nyanza down to the Congo River from an altitude of five thousand five hundred feet to one thousand four hundred feet above the sea. North and south of our track through the grass-land the face of the land was much broken by groups of cones or isolated mounts or ridges. North we saw no land higher than about six thousand feet above the sea; but bearing two hundred and fifteen degrees magnetic, at the distance of about fifty miles from our camp on the Nyanza, we saw a towering mountain, its summit covered with snow, and probably seventeen or eighteen thousand feet above the sea. It is called Ruevenzori, and will probably prove a rival to Kilimanjaro. I am not sure that it may not prove to be the Gordon-Bennett Mountain in Gambaragara; but there are two reasons for doubting it to be the same—first, it is a little too far west for the position of the latter, as given by me in 1876; and, secondly, we saw no snow on the Gordon-Bennett. I might mention a third, which is that the latter is a perfect cone apparently, while the Ruevenzori is an oblong mount, nearly level on the summit, with two ridges extending northeast and southwest.
“I have met only three natives who have seen the lake toward the south. They agree that it is large, but not so large as the Albert Nyanza.
“The Aruwimi becomes known as the Suhali about one hundred miles above Yambuya; as it nears the Nepoko it is called the Nevoa; beyond its confluence with the Nepoko it is known as the No-Welle; three hundred miles from the Congo it is called the Itiri, which is soon changed into the Ituri, which name it retains to its source. Ten minutes’ march from the Ituri waters we saw the Nyanza, like a mirror in its immense gulf.
“Before closing my letter let me touch more at large on the subject which brought me to this land—viz., Emin Pasha.
“The Pasha has two battalions of regulars under him—the first, consisting of about seven hundred and fifty rifles, occupies Duffle, Honyu, Lahore, Muggi, Kirri, Bedden, Rejaf; the second battalion, consisting of six hundred and forty men, guard the stations of Wadelai, Fatiko, Mahagi, and Mswa, a line of communication along the Nyanza and Nile about one hundred and eighty miles in length. In the interior west of the Nile he retains three or four small stations—fourteen in all. Besides these two battalions he has quite a respectable force of irregulars, sailors, artisans, clerks, servants. ‘Altogether,’ he said, ‘if I consent to go away from here we shall have about eight thousand people with us.’