I must mention that, on the morning of the same day, I was present at a conversation held by the Ladha, the respectable collector of the customs, with the worthy Ramji, his clerk. I had insisted upon their inserting in the estimate of necessaries the sum required to purchase a boat upon the “Sea of Ujiji.”
“Will he ever reach it?” asked the respectable Ladha, conveying his question through the medium of Cutchee, a dialect of which, with the inconsequence of a Hindu, he assumed me to be profoundly ignorant.
“Of course not,” replied the worthy Ramji; “what is he that he should pass through Ugogi?” (a province about half way.)
At the moment I respected their “sharm,” or shame, a leading organ in the oriental brain, which apparently has dwindled to inconsequential dimensions amongst the nations of the West. But when Ladha was alone, I took the opportunity to inform him that I still intended to cross Ugogo, and to explore the “Sea of Ujiji.” I ended by showing him that I was not unacquainted with Cutchee, and even able to distinguish between the debits and the credits of his voluminous sheets.
During the conversation, the loud wail of death rang wildly through the grave-like stillness of night. “O son, hope of my life! O brother, dearest of brothers! O husband! O husband!” these were the cries which reached our ears. We ran to the door of the Gurayza. The only son of the venerable Diwan Ukwere, who had been ascending the Kingani river on a mercantile expedition, with five slaves, had been upset by a vengeful hippopotamus, and, with two of his attendants, had lost his life.
“Insaf Karo! be honest!” said the Banyan, with whom I had had many discussions as to whether it be lawful or unlawful to shoot the hippopotamus, “and own that this is the first calamity which you have brought upon the country by your presence.”
I could only reply with the common-places of polemics. Why should Ladha, who by purchasing their spoils encouraged the destruction of herds of elephants, object to the death of a “creek-bull”? and why should the man who would not kill the “creek-bull” be ready to ruin a brother-man for making a better bargain about its tusks? Ladha received these futile objections contemptuously, as you would, right reverend father, were I to suggest that you, primate and spiritual peer, are not exactly following in the footsteps of certain paupers whom you fondly deem to have been your prototypes,—your exemplars.
When Ladha left, my spirits went with him. In the solitude and the silence of the dark Gurayza, I felt myself the plaything of misfortune. At Cairo I had received from the East India House an order to return to London, to appear as a witness on a trial by court-martial then pending. The missive was, as usual, so ineptly worded, that I did not think proper to throw overboard the Royal Geographical Society—to whom my services had been made over—by obeying it: at the same time I well knew what the consequences would be. Before leaving Egypt, an interview with the Count d’Escayrac de Lauture, had afforded me an opportunity of inspecting an expedition thoroughly well organised by His Highness Said Pacha, of military predilections, and the contrast between an Egyptian and an English exploration impressed me unpleasantly. Arrived at Aden, I had enlisted the services of an old and valued friend, Dr. Steinhaeuser, civil surgeon at that station: a sound scholar, a good naturalist, a skilful practitioner, endowed, moreover, with even more inestimable personal qualities, his presence would have been valuable in a land of sickness, skirmishes, and sporting adventures, where the people are ever impressed with the name of “medicine-man,” and in a virgin field promising subjects of scientific interest. Yet though recommended for the work by his Excellency the Governor of Bombay, Dr. Steinhaeuser had been incapacitated by sickness from accompanying me: I had thus with me a companion and not a friend, with whom I was “strangers yet.” The Persian war had prevented the fitting-out of a surveying vessel, ordered by the Court of Directors to act as a base of operations upon the African coast; no disposable officer of the Indian navy was to be found at the Presidency; and though I heard in Leadenhall Street of an “Observatory Sergeant” competent to conduct the necessary astronomical and meteorological observations, in the desert halls of the great Bungalow at Colaba only a few lank Hindus met my sight. Nor was this all. His Highness the late Sayyid Said, that estimable ally of the English nation, had for many years repeatedly made the most public-spirited offers to his friend Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton. He was more than once upon the point of applying for officers selected to map the caravan routes of Eastern Africa, and he professed himself willing to assist them with men, money, and the weight of his widely extended influence. This excellent prince had died forty days before the Expedition arrived at Zanzibar. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, also, whose extraordinary personal qualities enabled him to perform anything but impossibilities amongst the Arabs, was compelled by rapidly failing health, during my stay at Zanzibar, to lead a recluse life, which favoured the plans of my opponents. Finally, as Indian experience taught me, I was entering the unknown land at the fatal season, when the shrinking of the waters after the wet monsoon would render it a hotbed of malaria.
The hurry of departure, also, had caused a necessary neglect of certain small precautions, which, taken in time, save much after trouble. I should have shunned to have laid down limits of space and time for the Expedition, whereas my friend and adviser had specified the “Sea of Ujiji.” I intended to have drawn out every agreement in an official form, registered at the Consulate, and specifying all particulars concerning rations and presents for the escort, their ammunition, and their right of sporting—that is to say, of scaring the game before it could be shot—their reward for services, and their punishments for ill conduct. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s state of health, however, rendered him totally unfit for the excitement of business; and, without his assistance, a good result was not to be expected from measures so unfamiliar, and therefore so unpalatable, to the people whom they most concerned.
Excuse, amiable reader, this lengthy and egotistical preface to a volume of adventure. Do not think that I would invert the moral of the Frog-fable, by showing that what is death to you, may become fun to me. As we are to be companions—not to say friends—for an hour or two, I must put you in possession of certain facts, trivial in themselves, and all unworthy of record, yet so far valuable, that they may enable us to understand each other. Au reste, to quote the ballad so much admired by the Authoress of “Our Village”:—