Thus arrived the 6th of July, one of the most lucky days of my life; for having been more than a year without any means whatever, and struggling with my fate, in the endeavour to do as much as possible before I returned home, I suddenly found myself authorized to carry out the objects of this expedition on a more extensive scale, and found sufficient means placed at my disposal for attaining that object. The messenger, however, managed his business very cleverly; for having two large parcels of letters for me, one only containing despatches from the Foreign Office, and the other containing a large amount of private correspondence, he brought me first the former, which had been very carefully packed up in Kúkawa, in a long strip of fine cotton (gábagá), and then sewn in red and yellow leather, without saying a word about the other parcel; but when I had read at my leisure the despatches which honoured me with the confidence of Her Britannic Majesty’s government, and had rewarded his zeal with a new shirt, he went away, and soon returned with the second parcel, and a packet containing ten túrkedí, native cotton cloth, from Kanó, which at Mr. Overweg’s request the vizier of Bórnu had sent me, and three of which I immediately presented to the messenger and his two companions. The number of private letters from England, as well as from Germany, was very considerable; and all of them contained the acknowledgment of what I had done, the greatest recompense which a traveller in these regions can ever aspire to. No doubt the responsibility also thus thrown upon me was very great, and the conclusion at which I had arrived from former experience, that I should not be able to fulfil the many exaggerated expectations which were entertained of my future proceedings, was oppressive; for, in almost all the letters from private individuals, there was expressed the persuasion that I and my companion should be able, without any great exertion, and in a short space of time, to cross the whole of the unknown region of equatorial Africa, and reach the south-eastern coast,—an undertaking the idea of which certainly I myself had originated, but which, I had become convinced in the course of my travels, was utterly impossible, except at the sacrifice of a great number of years, for which I found the state of my health entirely insufficient, besides a body of trustworthy and sincerely attached men, and a considerable supply of means. Moreover I found, to my surprise and regret, that the sum of 800_l._ placed at my disposal by Lord Palmerston remained a dead letter, none of the money having been forwarded from Tripoli,—a sum of about fifteen hundred dollars, which had been previously sent, being regarded as sufficient.