[CHAPTER III.]
RETARDED BY RAINS AND OTHER MISHAPS.—GENERAL DESPONDENCY.—DEATH OF EDWARD POCOCK.—A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.—A LAND OF PLENTY.—ARRIVAL AT VICTORIA LAKE.—NATIVE SONG.—AFLOAT ON THE GREAT LAKE.—TERRIBLE TALES OF THE INHABITANTS.—ENCOUNTERS WITH THE NATIVES.—THE VICTORIA NILE.—RIPON FALLS.—SPEKE'S EXPLORATIONS.—THE ALEXANDRA NILE.—ARRIVAL AT KING MTESA'S COURT.—A MAGNIFICENT RECEPTION.—IN THE MONARCH'S PRESENCE.—STANLEY'S FIRST OPINIONS OF MTESA.
When the audience assembled in the evening Frank turned rapidly several pages of the book and said that Mr. Stanley's expedition was greatly retarded by the heavy rains which fell frequently and converted the ground into a water-soaked marsh, through which it was very difficult to proceed. Christmas day was a day of gloom, as everybody was wet and cold and hungry; the natives had little grain to sell, and the expedition was reduced to half-rations of food.
AN AFRICAN BLACKSMITH'S-SHOP.
Mr. Stanley wrote in his diary that he weighed one hundred and eighty pounds when he left Zanzibar, but his sufferings and lack of nourishing food had brought him down to one hundred and thirty-four pounds in thirty-eight days; and the young Englishmen that accompanied him were similarly reduced. In every new territory they entered they were obliged to pay tribute to the ruler, according to the custom of Africa, and the settlement of the question of tribute required a great deal of bargaining. There were frequent desertions of men, and in many instances they had not the honesty to leave behind them their loads and guns. At one place it was discovered that fifty men had formed a conspiracy to desert in a body, but the scheme was stopped by arresting the ringleaders and disarming their followers.
"Some twenty or more men were on the sick-list and too ill to walk," said Frank, "several were carried in hammocks, and others were left at the native villages, in accordance with the arrangements made at Zanzibar. The expedition halted four days at Suna, in the Warimi country, where grain was purchased at a high price, and the people seemed inclined to make trouble. The leader of the expedition was obliged to use a great deal of tact to conciliate the chiefs of this people, who are numerous and well-armed, so that an attack would have been no easy matter to resist. Edward Pocock was taken seriously ill at Suna, and carried in a hammock to Chiwyu—four hundred miles from the coast, and at an elevation of five thousand four hundred feet above the sea. In spite of all the attentions he received, he died soon after their arrival at the latter place. I will read Stanley's account of the burial of his faithful companion and friend: