Finally, on the 20th of September, 1871, I set out from the Arab settlement at Kwihara to resume the journey so long interrupted. I had been detained three months at Unyanyembe by an event totally unlooked-for when the expedition left the sea. Almost every day of this interval had witnessed trouble. Some troubles had attained the magnitude of public and private calamities. Many Arab friends had been massacred; many of my own people either had been slain in battle or had perished from disease. Over forty had deserted. One of my white companions was dead; the other had become a mere burden. All the transport animals but two had died; days of illness from fever had alternated with days of apparent good health. My joys had been few indeed, but my miseries many; yet this day, the third expedition that I had organised, through great good fortune numbered nearly sixty picked men, almost all of whom were well armed, and loaded with every necessary that was portable, bound to demonstrate if somewhere in the wild western lands the lost traveller lived, or was dead. The conclusion I had arrived at was, that, though Mirambo and his hordes effectually closed the usual road to Lake Tanganyika, a flank march might be made, sufficiently distant from the disturbed territory and sufficiently long to enable me to strike west, and make another attempt to reach the Arab colony on Lake Tanganyika. I calculated that from two hundred to three hundred miles extra marching would enable me to reach Ujiji safely.