This suggested mixed biscuits, that invaluable refreshment of the traveller, and from one thing to another we soon made up a complete list of our needs. The scissors, and skates, and the soap we procured at the Church and State stores,[11] but not, of course, the revolvers. The revolvers we got of the genuine Government pattern, because both Leonora and I are dreadfully afraid of fire-arms, and we knew that _these_, anyhow, would not 'go off.' The jam we got, of course, at the official cartridge emporium, same which we did _not_ shoot the Arabs. The Gladstone bag and the Bryant & May's matches we procured direct from the makers, resisting the piteous appeals of itinerant vendors. Some life-belts we laid in, and, as will presently be seen, we could have made no more judicious purchase. [11] Won't the critics say you are advertising the stores? And the tradesmen won't like it.--PUBLISHER. Where would the _stern reality_ of the story be (see _Spectator_), and the contrast with the later goings on, if you didn't give names?--ED. As, from information received on a mummy case, we were travelling in search of a mummy, of course we laid in a case of Mumm, which was often a source of gaiety in our darkest hours. The wine was procured, as I would advise every African traveller to do, from Messrs. ----.[12] [12] Messrs. Who? Printers in a hurry.--PUBLISHER. Suppressed the name. Messrs. ---- gave an impolite response to our suggestions as to mutual arrangements.--ED. Being acquainted with the deleterious effects of a malarious tropical atmosphere, we secured a pair of overalls, advertised as sovran for 'all-overishness,' the dreaded curse of an African climate. These we got at the celebrated emporium of Messrs. ----.[13] [13] Name suppressed. When eligible opportunity for advertisement as a substitute for a cheque was hinted at, Messrs. ---- brusquely replied, in the low Essex _patois_, 'Wadyermean?' Our preparations being now exhaustively completed, Leonora and I returned to Oxford, packed our things, and consulted as to the route which we should adopt. CHAPTER V. DOWN THE DARK RIVER. Down the Dark River, the mystic Isis, so Leonora had decided, we sped: Ustâni plying the long pole of the dhow, or native flat-bottomed boat, while we took it in turns to keep him up to his work by flicking him with a tandem-whip.