Such was the information most kindly written by Speke, which, in addition to a map drawn by Captain Grant, and addressed to the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, was to be my guide in the important exploration resolved upon. I am particular in publishing these details, in order to show the perfect freedom from jealousy of both Captains Speke and Grant. Unfortunately, in most affairs of life, there is not only fair emulation, but ambition is too often combined with intense jealousy of others. Had this miserable feeling existed in the minds of Speke and Grant, they would have returned to England with the sole honour of discovering the source of the Nile; but in their true devotion to geographical science and especially to the specific object of their expedition they gave me all information to assist in the completion of the great problem--the "Nile Sources." We were all ready to start. Speke and Grant, an their party of twenty-two people, for Egypt, and I in the opposite direction. At this season there were many boats at Gondokoro belonging to the traders' parties, among which were four belonging to Mr. Petherick, three of which were open cargo boats, and one remarkably nice diahbiah, named the "Kathleen," that was waiting for Mrs. Petherick and her husband, who were supposed to be at their trading station, the Niambara, about seventy miles west of Gondokoro; but no accounts had been heard of them. On the 20th February they suddenly arrived from the Niambara, with their people and ivory and were surprised at seeing so large a party of English in so desolate a spot. It is a curious circumstance, that although many Europeans had been as far south as Gondokoro, I was the first Englishman that had ever reached it. We now formed a party of four. Gondokoro has a poor and sandy soil, so unproductive that corn is in the greatest scarcity and is always brought from Khartoum by the annual boats for the supply of the traders' people, who congregate there from the interior, in the months of January and February, to deliver the ivory for shipment to Khartoum. Corn is seldom or never less than eight times the price at Khartoum; this is a great drawback to the country, as each trading party that arrives with ivory from the interior brings with it five or six hundred native porters, all of whom have to be fed during their stay at Gondokoro, and in many cases, in times of scarcity, they starve. This famine has given a bad name to the locality, and it is accordingly difficult to procure porters from the interior, who naturally fear starvation.