SS. _Madura_, March 9th, 1887, Near Cape of Good Hope. My dear ----, Apart from the Press letters which are to be published for the benefit of the Relief Fund, and which will contain all that the public ought to know just now, I shall have somewhat to say to you and other friends. The Sultan of Zanzibar received me with unusual kindness, much of which I owe to the introduction of Mr. William Mackinnon and Sir John Kirk. He presented me with a fine sword, a shirazi blade I should say, richly mounted with gold, and a magnificent diamond ring, which quite makes Tippu-Tib's eyes water. With the sword is the golden belt of His Highness, the clasp of which bears his name in Arabic. It will be useful as a sign, if I come before Arabs, of the good understanding between the Prince and myself; and if I reach the Egyptian officers, some of whom are probably illiterate, they must accept the sword as a token that we are not traders. You will have seen by the papers that I have taken with me sixty-one soldiers--Soudanese. My object has been to enable them to speak for me to the Soudanese of Equatoria. The Egyptians may affect to disbelieve firmans and the writing of Nubar, in which case these Soudanese will be pushed forward as living witnesses of my commission. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF TIPPU-TIB.] I have settled several little commissions at Zanzibar satisfactorily. One was to get the Sultan to sign the concessions which Mackinnon tried to obtain a long time ago. As the Germans have magnificent territory east of Zanzibar, it was but fair that England should have some portion for the protection she has accorded to Zanzibar since 1841. The Germans appeared to have recognized this, as you may see by the late Anglo-German Agreement. France had already obtained an immense area in West Africa. All the world had agreed to constitute the domain of King Leopold, on which he had spent a million sterling, as the Independent State of the Congo. Portugal, which is a chronic grumbler, and does little, and that little in a high-handed, illiberal manner, has also been graciously considered by the European Powers; but England, which had sent out her explorers, Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Grant, Baker, Keith Johnston, Thomson, Elton, &c., had obtained nothing, and probably no people had taken such interest in the Dark Continent, or had undergone such sacrifices in behalf of the aborigines, as the English. Her cruisers for the last twenty years had policed the ocean along the coast to suppress slave-catching; her missions were twenty-two in number, settled between East and West Africa. This concession that we wished to obtain embraced a portion of the East African coast, of which Mombasa and Melindi were the principal towns. For eight years, to my knowledge, the matter had been placed before His Highness, but the Sultan's signature was difficult to obtain.