[1] The sum was wholly inadequate. M. Erhardt has, I have been told, expended as much on a week’s march from Pangani Town to Fuga. The smallest of Wasawahili pedlars would hardly deem an outfit of 300 dollars sufficient. M. Erhardt was, even according to his own reduced ideas of distance, to march with twenty followers 400 miles, and to explore a lake 300 miles in breadth and of unknown length. In 1802, when cloth and beads were twice their present value in Africa, the black Pombeiros sent by M. Da Costa, superintendent of the “Cassangi Factory,” carried with them for the necessary expenses and presents, goods to the value of nearly 500_l._ M. Erhardt’s estimate was highly injurious to future travellers: either he knew the truth, and he should have named at once a reasonable estimate, or he was ignorant of the subject, and he should have avoided it. The consequence of his proposal was simply this:--With 5000_l._ instead of 1000_l._, the limited sum of the Government grant, the East African Expedition could have explored the whole central area; nothing but the want of supplies caused their return at the time when, after surmounting sickness, hardship, and want of discipline amongst the party, they were ready to push to the extreme end. At the same time I had laid before the Council of the Royal Geographical Society my desire to form an expedition primarily for the purpose of ascertaining the limits of the “Sea of Ujiji, or Unyamwezi Lake,” and secondarily, to determine the exportable produce of the interior, and the ethnography of its tribes. I have quoted exactly the words of the application. In these days every explorer of Central Africa is supposed to have set out in quest of the coy sources of the White Nile, and when he returns without them, his exploration, whatever may have been its value, is determined to be a failure. The Council honoured my plans with their approval. At their solicitation, the Foreign Office granted the sum of 1000_l._ for the outlay of the exploration, and the defunct Court of Directors of the late East India Company, who could not be persuaded to contribute towards the expenses, generously allowed me two years’ leave of absence from regimental duty, for the purpose of commanding the Expedition. I also received instructions to report myself to his Excellency the Lord Elphinstone, then Governor of Bombay, and to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, from whose influence and long experience much was expected.