Money is of no use in the heart of Africa. Goods of various kinds are the only coin that can purchase what the traveler needs, or pay the tribute that is exacted by the various tribes. He found that forty yards of cloth per day would keep one hundred men supplied with food. Thus, three thousand six hundred and fifty yards of cloth would support one hundred men twelve months. Next to cloths, beads were the best currency of the interior. Of these he purchased twenty sacks of eleven varieties in color and shape. Next came the brass wire, of which he purchased three hundred and fifty pounds, of about the thickness of telegraph wire. Next came the provisions and outfit of implements that would be needed—medicines, arms, donkeys, and last of all, men.
ZANZIBAR.
The capital of the island of Zanzibar, off the east coast of Africa.
A man by the name of Shaw, a native of England, who came to Zanzibar as third mate of an American ship, from which he was discharged, applied for work, and was engaged by Stanley in getting what he needed together and to accompany him on the expedition. He agreed to give him three hundred dollars per annum, and placed him next in rank to Farquhar. He then cast about for an escort of twenty men. Five who had accompanied Speke, and were called "Speke's Faithfuls," among whom, as a leader, was a man named Bombay, were first engaged. He soon got together eighteen more men as soldiers, who were to receive three dollars a month. Each was to have a flint-lock musket, and be provided with two hundred rounds of ammunition. Bombay was to receive eighty dollars a year, and the other "faithfuls" forty dollars.
Knowing that he was to enter a region of vast inland lakes, and that much delay and travel might be avoided by the possession of a large boat, he purchased one and stripped it of all its covering, to make the transportation easier. He also had a cart constructed to fit the goat-paths of the interior and to aid in transportation.
When all his purchases were completed and collected together, he found that the combined weight would be about six tons. His cart and twenty donkeys would not suffice for this, and so the last thing of all, was to procure carriers, or pagosi, as they were called. He himself was presented with a blooded bay horse by an American merchant at Zanzibar, named Gordhue, formerly of Salem.
On the 4th of February, 1871, twenty-eight days from his arrival at Zanzibar, Mr. Stanley's equipment was completed and he set sail for Bagomayo, twenty-five miles distant on the mainland, from which all caravans start for the interior, and where he was to hire his one hundred and forty or more pagosi or carriers. He was immediately surrounded with men who attempted in every way to fleece him, and he was harassed, and betrayed and hindered on every side. But, at length, all difficulties were overcome—the goods packed in bales weighing seventy-two pounds each—the force divided into five caravans, and in six weeks after he entered Bagomayo, Stanley himself was ready to start. The first caravan had departed February 18th; the second, February 21st; the third, February 25th; the fourth, on March 11th, and the last on March 21st. All told, the number comprised in all the caravans of the "Herald Expedition," was one hundred and ninety.
It was just seventy-three days after Stanley landed at Zanzibar, that he passed out of Bagomayo on his bay horse, with his last caravan, accompanied by twenty-eight carriers and twelve soldiers, under Bombay, while his Arab boy, Selim, the interpreter, had charge of the cart and its load.