1871. March. 11.—Fourth caravan departs with fifty-five pagazis, two chiefs, and three soldiers.
1871. March. 21.—Fifth caravan departs with twenty-eight pagazis, twelve soldiers, two white men, one tailor, one cook, one interpreter, one gun-bearer, seventeen asses, two horses, and one dog.
Total number, inclusive of all souls, comprised in caravans connected with the "New York Herald' Expedition," 192.
CHAPTER V. — THROUGH UKWERE, UKAMI, AND UDOE TO USEGUHHA.
Leaving Bagamoyo for the interior.—Constructing a Bridge.—
Our first troubles.—Shooting Hippopotami.—A first view of
the Game Land.—Anticipating trouble with the Wagogo.—The
dreadful poison—flies.—Unlucky adventures while hunting.—
The cunning chief of Kingaru.—Sudden death of my two
horses.—A terrible experience.—The city of the "Lion
Lord."
On the 21st of March, exactly seventy-three days after my arrival at Zanzibar, the fifth caravan, led by myself, left the town of Bagamoyo for our first journey westward, with "Forward!" for its mot du guet. As the kirangozi unrolled the American flag, and put himself at the head of the caravan, and the pagazis, animals, soldiers, and idlers were lined for the march, we bade a long farewell to the dolce far niente of civilised life, to the blue ocean, and to its open road to home, to the hundreds of dusky spectators who were there to celebrate our departure with repeated salvoes of musketry.
Our caravan is composed of twenty-eight pagazis, including the kirangozi, or guide; twelve soldiers under Capt. Mbarak Bombay, in charge of seventeen donkeys and their loads; Selim, my interpreter, in charge of the donkey and cart and its load; one cook and sub, who is also to be tailor and ready hand for all, and leads the grey horse; Shaw, once mate of a ship, now transformed into rearguard and overseer for the caravan, who is mounted on a good riding-donkey, and wearing a canoe-like tepee and sea-boots; and lastly, on, the splendid bay horse presented to me by Mr. Goodhue, myself, called Bana Mkuba, "the big master," by my people—the vanguard, the reporter, the thinker, and leader of the Expedition.
Altogether the Expedition numbers on the day of departure three white men, twenty-three soldiers, four supernumeraries, four chiefs, and one hundred and fifty-three pagazis, twenty-seven donkeys, and one cart, conveying cloth, beads, and wire, boat-fixings, tents, cooking utensils and dishes, medicine, powder, small shot, musket-balls, and metallic cartridges; instruments and small necessaries, such as soap, sugar, tea, coffee, Liebig's extract of meat, pemmican, candles, &c., which make a total of 153 loads. The weapons of defence which the Expedition possesses consist of one double-barrel breech-loading gun, smooth bore; one American Winchester rifle, or "sixteen-shooter;" one Henry rifle, or "sixteen-shooter;" two Starr's breech-loaders, one Jocelyn breech-loader, one elephant rifle, carrying balls eight to the pound; two breech-loading revolvers, twenty-four muskets (flint locks), six single-barrelled pistols, one battle-axe, two swords, two daggers (Persian kummers, purchased at Shiraz by myself), one boar-spear, two American axes 4 lbs. each, twenty-four hatchets, and twenty-four butcher-knives.
The Expedition has been fitted with care; whatever it needed was not stinted; everything was provided. Nothing was done too hurriedly, yet everything was purchased, manufactured, collected, and compounded with the utmost despatch consistent with efficiency and means. Should it fail of success in its errand of rapid transit to Ujiji and back, it must simply happen from an accident which could not be controlled. So much for the personnel of the Expedition and its purpose, until its point de mire be reached.