The hotel was thronged with passengers to India, with rosy, blooming English ladies and crowds of my own countrymen. I felt inclined to talk to everybody. Never was I so in love with my own countrymen and women; but they (I mean the ladies) all had large balls of hair at the backs of their heads! What an extraordinary change! I called Richarn, my pet savage from the heart of Africa, to admire them. "Now, Richarn, look at them!" I said. "What do you think of the English ladies? eh, Richarn? Are they not lovely?" "Wah Illahi!" exclaimed the astonished Richarn, "they are beautiful! What hair! They are not like the negro savages, who work other people's hair into their own heads; theirs is all real--all their own--how beautiful!" "Yes, Richarn," I replied, "ALL THEIR OWN!" This was my first introduction to the "chignon." We arrived at Cairo, and I established Richarn and his wife in a comfortable situation as private servants to Mr. Zech, the master of Sheppard's Hotel. The character I gave him was one that I trust has done him service. He had shown an extraordinary amount of moral courage in totally reforming from his original habit of drinking. I left my old servant with a heart too full to say good-by, a warm squeeze of his rough but honest black hand, and the whistle of the train sounded--we were off! I had left Richarn, and none remained of my people. The past appeared like a dream; the rushing sound of the train renewed ideas of civilization. Had I really come from the Nile Sources? It was no dream. A witness sat before me--a face still young, but bronzed like an Arab by years of exposure to a burning sun, haggard and worn with toil and sickness, and shaded with cares happily now past, the devoted companion of my pilgrimage, to whom I owed success and life--my wife. I had received letters from England, that had been waiting at the British Consulate. The first I opened informed me that the Royal Geographical Society had awarded me the Victoria Gold Medal, at a time when they were unaware whether I was alive or dead, and when the success of my expedition was unknown. This appreciation of my exertions was the warmest welcome that I could have received on my first entrance into civilization after so many years of savagedom. It rendered the completion of the Nile Sources doubly grateful, as I had fulfilled the expectations that the Geographical Society had so generously expressed by the presentation of their medal BEFORE my task was done. End of Project Gutenberg's In the Heart of Africa, by Samuel White Baker