"In the midst of all this terrific, high-pressure exercise arrives the first batch of applicants for employment. For it has long ago been bruited abroad that I am ready to enlist all able-bodied human beings willing to carry a load. Ever since I arrived at Zanzibar I have had a very good reputation among Arabs and Wangwana. They have not forgotten that it was I who found the 'old white man'--Livingstone--in Ujiji, nor that liberality and kindness to my men were my special characteristics. They have also, with the true Oriental spirit of exaggeration, proclaimed that I was but a few months absent; and that, after this brief excursion, they returned to their homes to enjoy the liberal pay awarded them, feeling rather the better for the trip than otherwise. This unsought-for reputation brought on me the laborious task of selecting proper men out of an extraordinary number of applicants. Almost all the cripples, the palsied, the consumptive, and the superannuated that Zanzibar could furnish applied to be enrolled on the muster-list, but these, subjected to a searching examination, were refused. Hard upon their heels came all the roughs, rowdies, and ruffians of the island, and these, schooled by their fellows, were not so easily detected. Slaves were also refused, as being too much under the influence and instruction of their masters, and yet many were engaged of whose character I had not the least conception, until, months afterwards, I learned from their quarrels in the camp how I had been misled by the clever rogues. [Illustration: WINDOW OF AN ARAB HOUSE, ZANZIBAR.] "All those who bore good characters on the Search Expedition, and had been despatched to the assistance of Livingstone in 1872, were employed without delay. Out of these the chiefs were selected: these were Manwa Sera, Chowpereh, Wadi Rehani, Kachéché, Zaidi, Chakanja, Farjalla, Wadi Safeni, Bukhet, Mabruki Manyapara, Mabruki Unyanyembé, Muini Pembé, Ferahan, Bwana Muri, Khamseen, Mabruki Speke, Simba, Gardner, Hamoidah, Zaidi Mganda, and Ulimengo. [Illustration: COXSWAIN ULEDI, AND MANWA SERA, CHIEF CAPTAIN. (_From a Photograph._)] "All great enterprises require a preliminary deliberative palaver, or, as the Wangwana call it, 'Shauri.' In East Africa, particularly, shauris are much in vogue. Precipitate, energetic action is dreaded. '_Poli, poli!_' or 'Gently!' is the warning word of caution given. "The chiefs arranged themselves in a semicircle on the day of the shauri, and I sat _à la Turque_ fronting them. 'What is it, my friends? Speak your minds.' They hummed and hawed, looked at one another, as if on their neighbor's faces they might discover the purport of their coming, but, all hesitating to begin, finally broke down in a loud laugh.