The escort settled, the three Parisians, assisted now by Madame de Guéran and Miss Poles, turned their attention to laying in a stock of brandy, tea, coffee, compressed vegetables, and spices. To the various articles brought from France to serve as presents or exchanges, they added a large quantity of English calico and coarse check, called _troumba_. Finally, an ample stock of ammunition— powder, bullets, lead, and cartridges was laid in, and packed in iron cases, with locks and keys, for it must be remembered that the negroes are very much given to waste on a large scale, and it is prudent to take precautions to prevent their habit of firing in the air now and again for amusement. All this immense paraphernalia was by degrees put on board the four vessels purchased by the Europeans, the neggher or noggor which had brought them from Berber to Khartoum, and three decked boats known on the Nile under the name of dahabiéh. One of the latter was fitted up for the conveyance of a few donkeys and ten horses, destined for the use of the Europeans, their interpreters, and their executive officer, Nassar. The whole flotilla was to be towed for a portion of the way, as far as the Gazelle River, by a steamer, belonging to the Government and ordered to proceed to Gondokoro, in search of Baker, whose military mission would expire on the 1st April, 1873. The preparations were all completed by the end of January. There was nothing then to detain our European colony at Khartoum, and it was at liberty to commence that terrible journey which for so long a time took such hold of both Europe and America. * * * * * * "My dear Pommerelle and Desrioux, for, as you say you always meet to read our letters, this one is addressed to you both. I write to you in my own name, and those of de Morin and Delange, who are too much occupied with our final preparations for departure to say good-bye to you as they could have wished. "We hope to embark in an hour's time, if we can manage to collect our sailors, escort, and servants, the whole lot having been undiscoverable and unmanageable ever since they handled their five months' pay, and are evidently bent on leaving their last piastre in the purlieus of Khartoum. "I have, in my former letters, posted you both up fully as regards our projected plans, which have not been altered in the least. We are going to bear in a straight line southward as far as the seriba, where Nassar states he entertained M. de Guéran. There we shall endeavour to hit upon and follow up the track of our fellow-countryman; but it is evident, as far as de Morin and I are concerned, that if we had known in France as much about the Baron as we have learnt in Khartoum, we should have mapped out a very different plan of operations.