"Guns firing in the distance; Debono's ivory porters arriving, for whom I have waited. My men rushed madly to my boat, with the report that two white men were with them who had come from the SEA! Could they be Speke and Grant? Off I ran, and soon met them in reality. Hurrah for old England! they had come from the Victoria N'yanza, from which the Nile springs .... The mystery of ages solved. With my pleasure of meeting them is the one disappointment, that I had not met them farther on the road in my search for them; however, the satisfaction is, that my previous arrangements had been such as would have insured my finding them had they been in a fix .... My projected route would have brought me vis-a-vis with them, as they had come from the lake by the course I had proposed to take .... All my men perfectly mad with excitement: firing salutes as usual with ball cartridge, they shot one of my donkeys; a melancholy sacrifice as an offering at the completion of this geographical discovery." When I first met them they were walking along the bank of the river towards my boats. At a distance of about a hundred yards I recognised my old friend Speke, and with a heart beating with joy I took off my cap and gave a welcome hurrah! as I ran towards him. For the moment he did not recognize me; ten years' growth of beard and moustache had worked a change; and as I was totally unexpected, my sudden appearance in the center of Africa appeared to him incredible. I hardly required an introduction to his companion, as we felt already acquainted, and after the transports of this happy meeting we walked together to my diahbiah; my men surrounding us with smoke and noise by keeping up an unremitting fire of musketry the whole way. We were shortly seated on deck under the awning, and such rough fare as could be hastily prepared was set before these two ragged, careworn specimens of African travel, whom I looked upon with feelings of pride as my own countrymen. As a good ship arrives in harbor, battered and torn by a long and stormy voyage, yet sound in her frame and seaworthy to the last, so both these gallant travelers arrived at Gondokoro. Speke appeared the more worn of the two; he was excessively lean, but in reality he was in good tough condition; he had walked the whole way from Zanzibar, never having once ridden during that wearying march. Grant was in honourable rags; his bare knees projecting through the remnants of trowsers that were an exhibition of rough industry in tailor's work. He was looking tired and feverish, but both men had a fire in the eye that showed the spirit that had led them through. They wished to leave Gondokoro as soon as possible, en route for England, but delayed their departure until the moon should be in a position for an observation for determining the longitude. My boats were fortunately engaged by me for five months, thus Speke and Grant could take charge of them to Khartoum.