The ‘sinews of war’ having been obtained, the formation of the expedition was proceeded with. On the 21st of March, 1871, it stood a compact little force of three whites, thirty-one armed freemen of Zanzibar, as escort, one hundred and fifty-three porters, and twenty-seven pack-animals, for a transport corps, besides two riding-horses, on the outskirts of the coast-town of Bagamoyo; equipped with every needful article for a long journey that the experience of many Arabs had suggested, and that my own ideas of necessaries for comfort or convenience, in illness or health, had provided. Its very composition betrayed its character. There was nothing aggressive in it. Its many bales of cloth, and loads of beads and wire, with its assorted packages of provisions and medicine, indicated a peaceful caravan about to penetrate among African tribes accustomed to barter and chaffer; while its few guns showed a sufficient defensive power against bands of native banditti, though offensive measures were utterly out of the question. I passed my apprenticeship in African travel while traversing the maritime region--a bitter school--amid rank jungles, fetid swamps, and fly-infested grass-lands, during which I encountered nothing that appeared to favour my journey. My pack and riding-animals died, my porters deserted, sickness of a very grievous nature thinned my numbers; but, despite the severe loss I sustained, I struggled through my troubles. * * * * * Into the narrative of external events is here inserted what he recorded of an interior experience at this time. * * * * * In the matter of religion, I doubt whether I had much improved (during the preceding years of trial and adventure). Had this stirring life amongst exciting events continued, it is probable that I should have drifted further away from the thoughts of religion. Years of indifference and excitement have an unconscious hardening power, and I might have lapsed altogether; but my training in the world of politics, of selfish hustling, of fierce competition, stopped in time; for, on commencing the work of my life, my first journey into Africa, I came face to face with Nature, and Nature was the means, through my complete isolation, of recalling me to what I had lost by long contact with the world. I had taken with me my Bible, and the American consul had given me, to pack up bottles of medicine with, a great many ‘New York Heralds,’ and other American newspapers. Strange connection! But yet strangest of all was the change wrought in me by the reading of the Bible and these newspapers in melancholy Africa.