The amount of information gathered by the expedition concerning the interior of Africa at Zanzibar, I may say was _nil_, to use Captain Burton's own words, in a letter written at the British Consulate, 22d April 1857, and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, page 52 of No. 1, vol. ii., where these remarkable words may be found:--"We could obtain no useful information from the European merchants of Zanzibar, who are mostly ignorant of everything beyond the island. The Arabs and Sawahilis, who were averse to, and fearful of, white travellers, _did_ give us information, but it was worse than none." The orders of the Royal Geographical Society to Captain Burton were these, in short:--"The great object of the expedition is to penetrate inland from Kilwa, or some other place on the east coast of Africa, and make the best of your way to the reputed Lake of Nyassa; to determine the position and limits of that lake; to ascertain the depth and nature of its waters and tributaries; to explore the country around it, &c. Having obtained all the information you require in that quarter, you are to proceed northwards towards the range of mountains marked upon our maps as containing the probable sources of the Bahr el Abiad, which it will be your next great object to discover." Bearing these instructions in mind, Captain Burton naturally felt desirous of penetrating from Kilwa to attack the missionaries' great slug-shaped lake in the tail. The reason why Captain Burton was prevented from doing so, I shall show again by a reference to the same letter. He writes thus:--"The accounts formerly made in Europe about the facility of penetrating inland from Kilwa (Quiloa), and the economy of travel in that region, are fabulous. The southern Sawahili are more hostile to explorers than the inhabitants of the northern maritime towns, and their distance from the seat of government renders them daring by impunity. But last year they persuaded the Waginda tribe of the interior to murder a peaceful Arab merchant, in order that strangers might be deterred from interfering with their commerce. Messrs Krapf and Erhardt, of the Mombas mission, spent a few hours at Kilwa, where they were civilly received by the governor and citizens, but they were sadly deceived in being led to imagine that they could make that port their starting-point." "We shall probably land at Bagamoyo."