by the Court of Directors to act as a base of operations upon the African coast; no disposable officer of the Indian navy was to be found at the Presidency; and though I heard in Leadenhall Street of an “Observatory Sergeant” competent to conduct the necessary astronomical and meteorological observations, in the desert halls of the great Bungalow at Colaba only a few lank Hindus met my sight. Nor was this all. His Highness the late Sayyid Said, that estimable ally of the English nation, had for many years repeatedly made the most public-spirited offers to his friend Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton. He was more than once upon the point of applying for officers selected to map the caravan routes of Eastern Africa, and he professed himself willing to assist them with men, money, and the weight of his widely extended influence. This excellent prince had died forty days before the Expedition arrived at Zanzibar. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, also, whose extraordinary personal qualities enabled him to perform anything but impossibilities amongst the Arabs, was compelled by rapidly failing health, during my stay at Zanzibar, to lead a recluse life, which favoured the plans of my opponents. Finally, as Indian experience taught me, I was entering the unknown land at the fatal season, when the shrinking of the waters after the wet monsoon would render it a hotbed of malaria. The hurry of departure, also, had caused a necessary neglect of certain small precautions, which, taken in time, save much after trouble. I should have shunned to have laid down limits of space and time for the Expedition, whereas my friend and adviser had specified the “Sea of Ujiji.” I intended to have drawn out every agreement in an official form, registered at the Consulate, and specifying all particulars concerning rations and presents for the escort, their ammunition, and their right of sporting--that is to say, of scaring the game before it could be shot--their reward for services, and their punishments for ill conduct. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton’s state of health, however, rendered him totally unfit for the excitement of business; and, without his assistance, a good result was not to be expected from measures so unfamiliar, and therefore so unpalatable, to the people whom they most concerned. Excuse, amiable reader, this lengthy and egotistical preface to a volume of adventure. Do not think that I would invert the moral of the Frog-fable, by showing that what is death to you, may become fun to me. As we are to be companions--not to say friends--for an hour or two, I must put you in possession of certain facts, trivial in themselves, and all unworthy of record, yet so far valuable, that they may enable us to understand each other. _Au reste_, to quote the ballad so much admired by the Authoress of “Our Village”:-- “The Pindar of Wakefield is my style, And what I list I write; Whilom a clerk of Oxenford, But now--a banished wight.” CHAP. II.