On the 16th October the adventurers left Moorzuk, and had a toilsome journey as far as Gatrone, where they arrived on the 24th of the same month. Seven days Dr. Vogel and his sappers remained at this place to await the arrival of the rest of the lagging camels and stores. In that time they were joined by a caravan of merchants with about fourteen Arabs from Egypt, going to Bornou to purchase slaves.
While at Gatrone a batch of more than 700 slaves, nearly all women and children, passed through the place. The grown-up men in the drove did not seem to exceed twenty in number. All were in a miserably withered state, and many were panting and dying from fatigue and want. Already they had been driven across a desert between 600 and 700 miles, and had yet to go to Tripoli, nearly 700 miles more. Every step of the journey was to be tramped, and most of them had burdens to bear on their heads, of from fifteen to twenty pounds or more in weight, according to their strength. The slave-masters were very cruel to the wretched creatures, for, if they showed signs of lassitude or fell exhausted on the sand, the whip was applied with unmeasured severity to their naked bodies; and if the horrid scourging failed to move them on, they were abandoned to their fate, perhaps three days from the next well, to perish from raging thirst.
The expedition reached Teghery on the 3rd November, and resting for a few days, after collecting dates for the use of the camels, moved on the 7th into the Great Desert. In the first three days no less than 250 skeletons of slaves were passed, and fragments of bones were scattered about in such vast numbers on the route, that one could traverse the wilderness unguided, without much chance of missing the track. At the wells of Meshroo, about two days’ journey from Teghery, the ground had the appearance of an excavated cemetery, or the site of a well-contested battle; and to be free from these sickening relics of mortality, the doctor and his sappers pitched their tents for the night at a distance.
The travelling was carried on at the rate of twelve or thirteen hours a-day, without halting, which was equal to a journey of from twenty-five to thirty miles. This was reckoned to be very fair work, as camels usually only go over two miles and a half of ground in an hour. The average heat of the sun ranged from 125° to 130°, and beamed upon the wayfarers with so oppressive an intensity that their substance and their strength were wasted in excessive perspiration. In the evening they halted, spread canvas, and lay down for the night. The two sappers posted themselves in turn as sentries over the caravan, to protect it from injury or surprise. During the night, owing to the state of the atmosphere falling from its fiery day heat to a temperature sometimes as low as 45°, the men suffered from a feeling of extreme cold.
In this way the expedition journeyed for sixteen days without seeing a single native. For ten marches of the period they looked in vain for the slightest trace of herbage, but at a Waddy called Ekaba, a not very luxuriant oasis, they found a little coarse grass that afforded an acceptable change to the camels after feeding for ten days upon dry dates. On the 27th November the expedition was at Ashanumra, in the country of the tribes of Tibboo.
In due time the expedition reached Kouka where it remained for a while, as Dr. Barth had gone on to Timbuctoo. The return of the chief being uncertain Dr. Vogel explored the country in the vicinity of the lake, taking with him corporal Maguire. Corporal Church was left to carry on the meteorological[meteorological] observations. Contrary to expectation, Dr. Barth, who had been reported dead, returned to Kouka, and soon after, corporal Church accompanied him home. Whatever services may since have been conducted by Dr. Vogel—of which no account has been communicated to the corps, it is proper, nevertheless, to record to the credit of the corporal the very kind terms in which, under date the 4th December, 1855, the doctor wrote of him to the Consul-General at Tripoli:—
“I beg to recommend to your special notice my faithful companion John Maguire, royal sappers and miners, who has, notwithstanding a serious indisposition under which he suffered in the beginning of our journey, used every exertion to promote the object of the expedition, and behaved in the most praiseworthy manner.” For his services corporal Church received a gift of 15l. from the foreign minister and a silver watch from the Royal Geographical Society.
The small party under Captain Owen, R.E., at Marlborough House, was increased in February to five rank and file. On the completion of the referential arrangement of the correspondence and documents connected with the Great Exhibition, they were attached in May to the department of practical science and art, under the superintendence of Mr. Henry Cole. Since the transfer they have been engaged in services of a very miscellaneous character, embracing the distribution to national and public schools of examples and models for teaching elementary knowledge, form, and colour, mounting and tinting examples and prints, preparing models, &c., and officiating as clerks and draughtsmen in the offices at Marlborough House. Corporal Mack, in addition to his ordinary duties, produced two or three plans of an interesting character. In arranging some dietary tables Dr. Lyon Playfair engaged the assistance of the corporal. The ingredients used as food, extending to twenty-three substances, having been subjected by the professor to analysis, required to be classified into a simple and consistent arrangement. This the corporal effected by means of an ingenious diagram in colours. Dr. Playfair was well pleased with the illustration, and when at a meeting of the Royal Society, to which the corporal had the honour of being invited, the professor announced his intention of publishing it for the use of schools, the promise was received with applause. True to his intention, Professor Playfair afterwards produced the plan in colours on a very large scale, and gave it a distribution as wide as the United Kingdom. On the 8th June, 1853, the diagram was exhibited at the Mansion-house, and attracted much attention. A reduced plan of the illustration was also made for the Dean of Hereford, which forms the frontispiece to the sixth edition of his work on ‘Secular Education.’ Corporal Mack constructed another elementary diagram, commencing with the diet of an agricultural labourer and ascending to that of a convict. Singular to add, by this scale it appears that good diet is increased in the same ratio as crime; and the industrious husbandman fares worse than the felon!
Corporal Gardner, with an assistant sapper, had charge of the decorative furniture of cabinetry, silk tapestry, and drawings, exhibited at Gore House. He received the various specimens, assisted to arrange them, and was intrusted with the responsible duty of securing their safety. On his removal to the royal mint, to receive instructions in the process of coining, he was succeeded by second-corporal John Pendered, who retained the charge of the cabinetry until the close of the exhibition in September, 1853. He also had the care of Gore House estate and the adjoining grounds, purchased by the Royal Commissioners. Second-corporal Frederick Key, the foreman of carpenters at Marlborough and Gore Houses, superintended the construction of the fitments for the exhibition of cabinetry, and the necessary repairs to the interior of Gore House. The working pay of the party, in addition to their regimental allowances, was 2s. each a-day, but corporal Pendered was allowed 3s. a-day, in consideration of the extra charge confided to him in the care of Gore House estate.
On the 15th February was commenced the sanitary survey of Woolwich for the Local Board of Health by corporal James Macdonald, having under him a small variable party of sappers and civil assistants. The survey comprised that part of Woolwich lying south of the river Thames, and was finished in October, the work having been delayed for a few months by the withdrawal of the party for the military survey of Chobham. Corporal Macdonald was provided with outline tracings from the 5-feet initial plan of the metropolitan survey, enlarged to ten feet to a mile. These he carefully corrected, and filled in the details, embodying such other minutiæ as were necessary to assist the local authorities in effecting improvements in the drainage, &c. The whole work, so creditable to corporal Macdonald, mapped on about twenty full sheets, was done at the expense of the Woolwich Board of Health for 450l.