From Egypt were despatched to Zanzibar 510 Remington rifles, 2 tons of gunpowder, 350,000 percussion caps, and 100,000 rounds Remington ammunition. In England the War Office furnished me with 30,000 Gatling cartridges, and from Messrs. Kynoch & Co., Birmingham, I received 35,000 special Remington cartridges. Messrs. Watson & Co., of 4, Pall Mall, packed up 50 Winchester repeaters and 50,000 Winchester cartridges. Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the Maxim Automatic Gun, donated as a gift one of his wonderful weapons, with shield attached mounted on a light but effective stand. We despatched to Zanzibar 100 shovels, 100 hoes, for forming breastworks, 100 axes for palisading the camp, 100 bill-hooks for building zeribas. Messrs. Burroughs & Welcome, of Snowhill Buildings, London, the well-known chemists, furnished gratis nine beautiful chests replete with every medicament necessary to combat the endemic diseases peculiar to Africa. Every drug was in tablets mixed with quick solvents, every compartment was well stocked with essentials for the doctor and surgeon. Nothing was omitted, and we all owe a deep debt of gratitude to these gentlemen, not only for the intrinsic value of these chests and excellent medicines, but also for the personal selection of the best that London could furnish, and the supervision of the packing, by which means we were enabled to transport them to Yambuya without damage. Messrs. John Edgington & Co., of Duke Street, London, took charge of our tents, and made them out of canvas dipped in a preservative of sulphate of copper which preserved them for three years. Notwithstanding their exposure to three hundred days of rain, for the first time in my experience in Africa I possessed a tent which, after arrival at Zanzibar in 1889, was well able to endure two hundred days more of rain. Messrs. Fortnum & Mason, of Piccadilly, packed up forty carrier loads of choicest provisions. Every article was superb, the tea retained its flavour to the last, the coffee was of the purest Mocha, the Liebig Company's Extract was of the choicest, and the packing of all was excellent. [Illustration: CAPTAIN NELSON.] I need not enumerate what else was purchased. Four expeditions into Africa, with my old lists of miscellanea before me, enabled me to choose the various articles, and in Sir Francis de Winton and Captain Grant Elliott I had valuable assistants who would know what magazines to patronize, and who could check the deliveries. Colonel Sir Francis de Winton was my successor on the Congo, and he gave me gratuitously and out of pure friendship the benefit of his great experience, and his masterly knowledge of business to assist me in the despatch of the various businesses connected with the expedition, especially in answering letters, and selecting out of the hundreds of eager applicants for membership a few officers to form a staff. [Illustration: LIEUTENANT STAIRS.]