As we approached the city file-firing was heard day and night: we thought that there was fighting, but it proved that the people were keeping their Thursday, our Friday eve, with all the honours. The place was full of armed men, and for a fortnight, during which the wildest rumours flew abroad, all was excitement and suspense. Although Mr Ezkel bin Yusuf, British agent at Maskat, had omitted to report the embarkation of Sayyid Suwayni on February 11, yet the invader was known to be en route. The European officials at Zanzibar stood undecided how to act except in the matter of pacification. The French Consul, whose protection had been sought by Sayyid Majid, held to the doctrine that all peoples (except the Spaniards?) have a right to elect their rulers. The loss of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton was severely felt: the English Consul who succeeded him was a new man, reported generally to be not indifferent to self-interest. The U. S. Consul refused to take any part in the matter, declaring that if he was killed his nation would demand four lacs of rupees, one for himself, one for his wife, and two for the house.
Presently it was announced officially that the invading fleet had been dispersed by a storm, and that Capt. Fullerton, of H. M. S. Punjaub, sailing under orders of the Bombay Government, had persuaded Sayyid Suwayni to return. Congratulations were exchanged, salutes were fired, bullets whizzed about like hornets, the negroes danced and sang for a consecutive week, and with the least possible delay armed men poured in crammed boats from the Island towards their normal stations. But the blow had been struck: the cholera had filled the city with mourning; the remnant of the trading season was insufficient for the usual commercial transactions, and a strong impression that the attack from Maskat would be renewed, as indeed it was, seemed to be uppermost in every mind.[[73]]
I have related in a former volume how the change at the British Consulate affected me personally. My report to the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society had not been forwarded, and no one knew where it was. The sketch and field books which we had sent in case of mishap from the interior, were accidentally found stowed away in some drawer. A mistaken feeling of delicacy made me object to be the bearer of despatches which would have thrown a curious light upon certain intrigues, and no feeling of delicacy on the part of the person complained of prevented his devising an ignoble plot and carrying out the principle, ‘Calumniari audacter, semper aliquid hærebit.’ The Home branch of the Indian Government embraced the opportunity of displaying under the sham of inflexible justice—summum jus summa injuria—peculiar animus, and turned a preoccupied ear to explanations which would have more than satisfied any other. And thus unhappily ended my labours at Zanzibar and in Eastern Intertropical Africa.[Africa.]
CHAPTER XII.
CAPTAIN SPEKE.
‘Tantus amor veri, nihil est quod noscere malim
Quam fluvii causas per sæcula tanta latentes,
Ignotumque caput.’—Lucan, x. 189.
I fully recognize the difficulty of writing a chapter with such a heading. Whatever is spoken will be deemed by some better unspoken; whilst others would wish me to say much that has been, they will believe, left unsaid. Those who know me, however, will hardly judge me capable of setting down ought unfairly, or of yielding, after such a length of years, to feelings of indignation, however justifiable they might have been considered in the past. Shortly after Capt. Speke’s decease I was asked to publish a sketch of his life and adventures: at that time I had hardly heart for the task.
In beginning this short memoir, I can now repeat the words published six years ago.[[74]] ‘Be it distinctly understood that, whilst differing from Captain Speke upon almost every geographical subject supposed to be “settled” by his exploration of 1860 to 1863, I do not stand forth as the enemy of the departed. No man can better appreciate the noble qualities of energy, courage, and perseverance which he so eminently possessed, than do I, who knew him for so many years, and who travelled with him as a brother, before the unfortunate rivalry respecting the Nile Sources arose like the ghost of discord between us, and was fanned to a flame by the jealousy and the ambition of “friends.”’ I claim only the right of telling the truth and the whole truth, and of speaking as freely of another as I would be spoken of myself in my own biography. In this chapter I shall be careful to borrow whatever he chose to publish concerning his own career, and to supplement it with recollections and observations of my own.[[75]]
Capt. Speke (John Hanning) was born on May 4th, 1827, at Orleigh Court, near Bideford, West England. He was educated at Barnstaple Grammar School, and he used often to confess, with no little merriment, his devotion to bird-nesting and his hatred of ‘book-learning.’ This distaste was increased by two ophthalmic attacks in childhood, which rendered reading a painful task; and in after life he frequently suffered from snow-blindness when crossing the Himalayas. At the age of 17 he was sent to India as a cadet, and in 1841 he was gazetted ensign in the 46th Regiment Bengal N. I. After the usual monotonous barrack-life, he found himself a subaltern in the so-called ‘Fighting Brigade’ of General Sir Colin Campbell, and during the Panjab war he took part in the affairs of, and obtained the medals for, Ramnagar, Sadullapore, Chillianwala, and Guzerat. Burning to distinguish himself in action, he was not favoured by opportunity: on one occasion he was told off with a detachment[detachment] to capture a gun; but, to his great disgust, a counter-order was issued before the attack could be made.