When the starting-point came to be debated, the Consul strongly objected to an Expedition into the interior _viâ_ Kilwa, on account of the opposition to be expected at a port so distant from the seat of government, where the people, half-caste Arabs and Wasawahili, who are under only a nominal control, still retained a strong predilection for protection, and a violent hostility to strangers. These reasons led him to propose my landing upon the coast opposite Zanzibar, and to my thence marching with a strong escort, despatched by the Arab prince, through the maritime tribes, whose cruel murder of M. Maizan, the first European known to have penetrated beyond the sea-board, was yet fresh in the memories of men. This notion was accepted the more readily, as during my short preliminary sojourn at Zanzibar, I had satisfactorily ascertained from Arab travellers that the Maravi or Kilwa Lake is distinct from the “Sea of Ujiji;” that the former is of comparatively diminutive dimensions; that there is no caravan route between the two; and therefore that, by exploring the smaller, I should lose the chance of discovering the larger water. Moreover, the general feeling of the Zanzibarites--of the Christian merchants, whom I had offended by collecting statistics about copal-digging, ivory, and sesamum--of the Bhattias or Hindus of Cutch, who systematically abuse the protection of the British flag to support the interest of the slave trade--of the Arabs, who remembered nothing but political intrigue in the explorations of the “Mombas Mission,” and the lamentable result of Dr. Krapf’s political intrigues--and of the Africans generally, who are disposed to see in every innovation some new form of evil--had been conveyed to my ears explicitly enough to warrant my apprehensions for the success of the Expedition, had I insisted upon carrying out the project proposed by M. Erhardt. I must here explain, that before my departure from England, the Church Missionary Society had supplied me, after a personal interview in Salisbury Square, with a letter to their _employé_, M. Rebmann, the last remnant of that establishment at Mombasah, which had, it is said, expended about 12,000_l._ with the minimest of results. The missionaries had commenced operations with vigour, and to the work of conversion they had added certain discoveries in the unknown lands of the interior, which attracted the attention of European geographers. Unhappily Dr. Krapf, the principal, happened to commit himself by the following assertion:--“The Imaum of Muskat has not an inch of ground on the coast between the Island of Wassin and the Pangani River; this tract, in fact, belonging to King Kmeri of Usumbara, down from 4° 30′ to 5° 30′ S. The tract, which is very low, is inhabited by the Wasegua tribes, and is the chief slave-market for supplying Zanzibar.”