Our landing-place presented a lively scene. The sellers of bananas, potatoes, sugar-cane, rice, flour of manioc, and fowls clamoured for customers, and cloths and beads exchanged hands rapidly. This is the kind of life which the Zanzibaris delight in, like almost all other natives, and their happy spirits were expressed in sounds to which we had long been strangers.
Early this morning I had sent a canoe to pick up any stragglers that might have been unable to reach camp, and before 3 P.M. five sick men, who had surrendered themselves to their fate, were brought in, and shortly after a muster was held. The following were the returns of men able to march:—
1887.
Sept. 17.
Ugarrowwa's
station.
| Men. | Chiefs. | |
| No. 1 Company | 69 | 4 |
| No. 2 Company | 57 | 4 |
| No. 3 Company | 60 | 4 |
| No. 4 Company | 61 | 4 |
| Cooks | 3 | |
| Boys | 9 | |
| Europeans | 6 | |
| Soudanese | 6 | |
| 271 | 16 | |
| Sick | 56 | |
| 327 | ||
| Departed from Yambuya | 389 | |
| Loss by desertion and death | 62 |
The boat and canoes were manned, and the sick transported to the Arab settlement, arrangements having been made for boarding them at the rate of five dollars each per month until Major Barttelot should appear, or some person bearing an order from me.
It will be remembered that we met Ugarrowwa's men on the 31st of August, one day's march from Avejeli, opposite the Nepoko mouth. These men, instead of pursuing their way down river, had returned to Ugarrowwa to inform him of the news they had received from us, believing that their mission was accomplished. It was Ugarrowwa's wish to obtain gunpowder, as his supply was nearly exhausted. Major Barttelot possessed two and a quarter tons of this explosive, and, as reported by us, was advancing up river, but as he had so much baggage it would take several months before he could arrive so far. I wished to communicate with Major Barttelot, and accordingly I stipulated with Ugarrowwa that if his men continued their way down river along the south or left bank until they delivered a letter into his hands, I would give him an order for three hundredweight of powder. He promised to send forty scouts within a month, and expressed great gratitude. (He actually did send them, as he promised, between the 20th and 25th of October. They succeeded in reaching Wasp Rapids, 165 miles from Yambuya, whence they were obliged to return, owing to losses and the determined hostility of the natives.)
1887.
Sept. 17.
Ugarrowwa's
station. Our Zanzibari deserters had been deluded like ourselves. Imagining that Ugarrowwa's people had continued their journey along some inland route westward, they had hastened westward in pursuit to join them, whereas we discovered they had returned eastward to their master. The arrangements made with Ugarrowwa, and the public proclamation of the man himself before all, would, I was assured, suffice to prevent further desertion.
We were pretty tired of the river work with its numerous rapids, and I suggested to Ugarrowwa that I should proceed by land; the Arab, however, was earnest in dissuading me from that course, as the people would be spared the necessity of carrying many loads, the sick having been left behind, and informed me that his information led him to believe that the river was much more navigable above for many days than below.