Meantime, soon after the announcement of the “New Mission,” applications by the score poured into the offices of the _Daily Telegraph_ and _New York Herald_ for employment. Before I sailed from England, over 1200 letters were received from “generals,” “colonels,” “captains,” “lieutenants,” “midshipmen,” “engineers,” “commissioners of hotels,” mechanics, waiters, cooks, servants, somebodies and nobodies, spiritual mediums and magnetizers, &c. &c. They all knew Africa, were perfectly acclimatized, were quite sure they would please me, would do important services, save me from any number of troubles by their ingenuity and resources, take me up in balloons or by flying carriages, make us all invisible by their magic arts, or by the “science of magnetism” would cause all savages to fall asleep while we might pass anywhere without trouble. Indeed I feel sure that, had enough money been at my disposal at that time, I might have led 5000 Englishmen, 5000 Americans, 2000 Frenchmen, 2000 Germans, 500 Italians, 250 Swiss, 200 Belgians, 50 Spaniards and 5 Greeks, or 15,005 Europeans, to Africa. But the time had not arrived to depopulate Europe, and colonize Africa on such a scale, and I was compelled to respectfully decline accepting the valuable services of the applicants, and to content myself with Francis John and Edward Pocock, and Frederick Barker—whose entreaties had been seconded by his mother, on my return from America. I was agreeably surprised also, before departure, at the great number of friends I possessed in England, who testified their friendship substantially by presenting me with useful “tokens of their regard” in the shape of canteens, watches, water-bottles, pipes, pistols, knives, pocket companions, manifold writers, cigars, packages of medicine, Bibles, prayer-books, English tracts for the dissemination of religious knowledge among the black pagans, poems, tiny silk banners, gold rings, &c. &c. A lady for whom I have a reverent respect presented me also with a magnificent prize mastiff named ‘Castor,’ an English officer presented me with another, and at the Dogs’ Home at Battersea I purchased a retriever, a bull-dog, and a bull-terrier, called respectively by the Pococks, ‘Nero,’ ‘Bull,’ and ‘Jack.’ There were two little farewell dinners only which I accepted before my departure from England. One was at the house of the Editor of the _Daily Telegraph_, where I met Captain Fred. Burnaby and a few other kind friends. Captain Burnaby half promised to meet me at the sources of the Nile. The other was a dinner given by the representative of the _New York Herald_, at which were present Mr. George Augustus Sala, Mr. W. G. Stillman, Mr. George W. Smalley, and three or four other journalists of note. It was a kindly quiet good-bye, and that was my last of London.