In his plan for exploring the Great Lake, and laid before the Royal Geographical Society in 1854, M. Erhardt proposed to land at Kilwa, where he had touched with Dr Krapf; to collect a party of Wasawahili, and with an outfit of $300 to march into the continent. This might have been feasible in 1854; it was impossible in 1856. The sum mentioned was inadequate; the missionaries had spent as much upon a fortnight’s march from Pangani to Fuga. Slaves are the only porters of the land, and the death of Sayyid Said had then made the coast Arabs and the Mrima people about Kilwa almost independent of Zanzibar. My directions from home were to follow, if possible, this line; Lieut. Christopher, I. N., however, who visited the coast in 1843, more wisely advised explorers to avoid the neighbourhood of Kilwa. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, moreover, strongly objected to our landing anywhere but under the guns of Zanzibar, as it were. He informed me that the Wangindo, a tribe settled behind Kilwa, had lately murdered a native trader, at the instigation of those settled on the coast; and that nothing less than a ship of war stationed at the port would open the road to a ‘Muzungu’ (white man). The Consul had also warned me that my inquiries into the country trade, and the practice of writing down answers—without which, however, no report could have been compiled—were exciting ill will. The short- sighted traders dreaded, like Orientals, that competition might result from our discoveries, and their brains were too dull to perceive that the development of the resources of the interior would benefit all those connected with the coast. Houses that had amassed in a few years large fortunes by the Zanzibar trade, were exceedingly anxious to ‘let sleeping dogs lie.’ As far as dinners and similar hospitality, the white merchants resident on the Island received us with the usual African profuseness. There were, of course, honourable exceptions: I have especially mentioned Captain Mansfield, Mr Masury, and M. Bérard; but not a few—exempla sunt odiosa—spread reports amongst the natives, Banyans, Arabs, and Wasawahili, which were very likely to secure for us the disastrous fate of M. Maizan. Captain Speke, who subsequently ignored this fact, threatened to throw one of the ‘first houses’ out of the window; and Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton declared that unless more discretion in spreading evil reports were shown he would withdraw British protection from another well-known firm. The son of a Hamburg merchant had written to his father for leave to supply us with sums to be recovered from the Royal Geographical Society. When informed of this peculiar kindness I inquired the object, and the answer was that, intending himself to visit India, he wished to prepare his father for the expense of travel in the East. Certainly knowing all these intrigues, I see no reason why they should not be published.