"When I was ready to take observations, I seated myself cross-legged before the artificial horizon."
"There are stars near it," said I, "but your eyes cannot see them. I will show them to you."
Then I made him look with the telescope towards Jupiter, and he saw the satellites. He looked at me with awe, then with wonder. Fortunately he knew I would not harm him, but throwing himself at my feet, he took hold of them and exclaimed: "You are a great Oguizi. My eyes have seen what no other black man's have seen before;" then he got up and in a loud voice invoked the spirits of his ancestors to protect and watch over him, and shouted, "Great indeed is the Oguizi."
When I was ready to take observations, I seated myself cross-legged before the artificial horizon. On my right was a sextant to take the distance between the moon and the lunar stars that were in position. Close by was one of the watches; also the magnifying-glass to help me to read the degrees, minutes, and seconds on the sextant.
On my left was the sextant for taking altitudes, near which was the slate with pencil to write down the figures, and the bull's-eye lantern was lighted to help me to read the sextant. Also a thermometer for ascertaining the temperature.
The most important thing was to make the observations as quickly as possible and read from the watch the space of time between them.
After spending four hours in making observations I stopped. I looked at Rogala. He was fast asleep, for he was very tired and had worked hard during the day. I awoke him, and we went to our little hut and lay down to sleep. We knew that if natives came up or down the river Andekko would warn us in time.
When I awoke, Rogala was still asleep. Ndova had his eyes shut and his head was hanging down on his breast. Andekko lay across the door, apparently asleep, but as soon as he heard me he wagged his tail and followed me to the river and remained by me until I had had a good bath.
For three days and three nights I worked very hard. I took many observations, and made calculations which showed my latitude, longitude, the day of the month and of the week, and gave me the month in which I was. I found that it was Wednesday, the 17th of August, that I was ninety miles south of the equator, and two hundred and ten miles in the interior.