"On the morning of the 29th I started off as soon as it was daylight, determining to reach Nelson that day and decide the question as to his being yet alive. Accompanied by one man only, I soon found myself far ahead of my followers. As I neared Nelson's camp a feverish anxiety to know his fate possessed me, and I pushed on through streams and creeks, by banks and bogs, over which our starving people had slowly toiled with the boat sections. All were passed by quickly to-day, and again the skeletons in the road testified to the trials through which we had passed. As I came down the hill into Nelson's camp, not a sound was heard but the groans of two dying men in a hut close by, the whole place had a deserted and woe-begone look. I came quietly round the tent and found Nelson sitting there; we clasped hands, and then, poor fellow! he turned away and sobbed, and muttered something about being very weak. "Nelson was greatly changed in appearance, being worn and haggard looking, with deep lines about his eyes and mouth. He told me his anxiety had been intense, as day after day passed and no relief came; he had at last made up his mind that something had happened to us, and that we had been compelled to abandon him. He had lived chiefly upon fruits and fungus which his two boys had brought in from day to day. Of the fifty-two men you left with him, only five remained, of whom two were in a dying state. All the rest had either deserted him or were dead. "He has himself given you an account of his losses from death and desertion. I gave him the food you sent him, which I had carefully watched on the way, and he had one of the chickens and some porridge cooked at once, it was the first nourishing food he had tasted for many days. After I had been there a couple of hours my people came in and all crowded round the tent to offer him their congratulations. "You remember Nelson's feet had been very bad for some days before we left him, he had hardly left the tent the whole time he had been here. At one time he had had ten ulcers on one foot, but he had now recovered from them in a great measure and said he thought he would be able to march slowly. On the 30th we began the return march. I gave out most of the loads to the Manyuema and Zanzibaris, but was obliged to leave thirteen boxes of ammunition and seven other loads, these I buried, and Parke will be able to fetch them later on. "Nelson did the marches better than I expected, though he was much knocked up at the end of each day. On the return march we crossed the river lower down and made our way up the right bank and struck your old road a day's march from the Arab camp. Here again we passed more skeletons, at one place there were three within 200 yards of each other.