Of these opportunities of seeing considerable numbers of the natives gathered round me, I made the best use I could to obtain the measurements of their bodies, an achievement on which I had set my mind with some degree of pertinacity. At the end of one year’s residence in the interior I had made a synopsis (under about forty heads) of the measurements of nearly two hundred individuals, but unfortunately very few of my memoranda are now forthcoming. During my intercourse with the natives I very often allowed what pictures I had to be exhibited, in order to satisfy their repeated inquiries. All they saw stirred up their unfeigned delight, and continually prompted them to ask in astonishment why they had not learnt the same things from the “Turks,” and to express their conviction that that must be a wonderful country where tools and guns were made. The indolent Nubians, too, would pay me visits most assiduously till I was absolutely weary of them. They would often make their appearance quite early and I could only disengage myself from them by letting them have my books and pictures about Africa to look through. The illustrations in ‘Le Tour du Monde,’ in Speke’s ‘Travels,’ and in Baker’s ‘Hunting Adventures,’ all alike furnished them with inexhaustible material for question and answer. They shouted their approbation aloud, and crowned their admiring estimate of any picture by crying out “bazyatoo” (the very facsimile), again and again. The name which Speke’s book acquired in the Seriba was ‘The History of King Kamrasi,’ while they called Baker’s work ‘The Book of the Elephant Hunter.’ In the beginning of September I was able to make a despatch to the river of my treasures I had collected, and to forward them by way of Khartoom to Europe. I had upwards of forty packages, and to put them together and make them secure was the business of a good many days. Particularly laborious was it to sew them all upon skins, and still more laborious, I do not doubt, to rip them up again when they reached their destination; for during their transit across the parching desert, the hides are not unfrequently so dried up that they become as hard as tin. For the protection of my packages and to prevent the botanical contents being invaded by insects or gnawed by rats, I had no difficulty in providing the caoutchouc substance of the Carpodinus, the “Mono” of the Bongo. This I obtained in a fresh condition, when it has the appearance of a well-set cream, and washed it lightly over the linen or the paper like a varnish. Not an insect found its way through this coating, and my packages all arrived thoroughly uninjured in spite of their being a twelvemonth on their way. Less adapted for the purpose I found both the milky sap of the fig and of the butter tree, because it is not so uniform in its character and does not admit of being spread so readily.