It has been mentioned that Stanley’s letter to the “Daily Telegraph,” summoning missionaries to the court of Mutesa, decided the fate of Uganda. This letter met with an immediate response, and in 1876 two parties of English missionaries were sent out by the Church Missionary Society. The Rev. G. Lichfield, Mr. C. W. Pearson, and Dr. R. W. Felkin were despatched by the Nile route. They travelled from Suakin to Khartum, and thence, by the help of Gordon Pasha, to the Albert Nyanza and Uganda. The other half of the missionary party (Lieutenant Shergold Smith, R.N., the Rev. C. T. Wilson, and, amongst others, Alexander Mackay, a Scottish engineer) made the journey by way of Zanzibar and Unyamwezi. Some of these missionaries were detained at the south end of the Victoria Nyanza. Lieutenant Shergold Smith--a man of great promise--journeyed across the lake in a boat and reached Uganda; but soon after his return to the south end of the lake he was killed in an attack made by the natives of Ukerewe (Bukerebe) on the Arab traders. Leaving Mackay, Lichfield, and O’Neil in Uganda, C. T. Wilson and R. W. Felkin decided to return to Europe, taking with them envoys whom Mutesa wished to send to England. On their return journey they were greatly troubled by the sudd, which then--as frequently before and since--practically blocked the navigation of the main Nile. They therefore made a very interesting overland journey through Darfur and Kordofan, and thence back into Egypt. CHAPTER XX GORDON AND HIS LIEUTENANTS.--JUNKER AND THE NILE-CONGO WATER-PARTING In 1874 Colonel Purdy and Colonel Colston (Englishmen) were despatched by the Egyptian government respectively into Darfur and Kordofan for surveying purposes. By their expeditions a good deal of the country along these half-dry affluents of the Bahr-al-Arab and the water-parting between the Shari and the Nile was explored and made known. Their work was added to in some respects (1875–1876) by Sidney Ensor, a civil engineer, who surveyed the route for a railway from Wadi Halfa to Al Fasher, the capital of Darfur.