The reader will ask what induced me to take a guide apparently so little fit for rough and ready work? In the first place, the presence of Saíd bin Sálim el Lamki, el Hináwi, was a pledge of our utter ‘respectability,’ and as a court spy, he could report that we were not malignants. Moreover, he was well known upon the coast, and he had a knowledge-box filled with local details, which he imparted without churlishness. During the first trip I found him full of excellent gifts, courteous, thoroughly good-tempered, and apparently truthful, honest, and honourable—a bright exception to the rule of his unconscientious race. When I offered him the task he replied, ‘Verily, whoso benefiteth the beneficent becometh his lord; but the vile, when well treated, will turn and rend thee.’ I almost hoped that he would not disappoint me in the end; but the delays, the dangers, and the hardships of the second journey proved too much for Saíd bin Sálim. The thin outer varnish disappeared from the man, and the material below was not inviting. The Maskat Arab, especially the half-caste, easily becomes the Bedáwi, the Ishmael, the Orson. These people have rarely any ‘stay’ in them; they are charming only as long as things run smooth, and after once showing true colours, they care not to conceal them. Arabs, however, are not the only handsome shoes that badly pinch. How often would fellow-travellers have avoided one another like fire, had they been able to see a trifle below the surface! Saíd bin Sálim, offended by certain remarks in my Lake Regions of Central Africa (passim), and wishing to ‘prove his character for honour and honesty,’ persuaded Capt. Speke to give him another chance, and began by telling a gross falsehood, which Capt. Speke at once believed. He accompanied the second East African expedition: he played his usual slavish tricks, and he had to be ‘dropped,’ utterly useless, at Kazeh, with the Arabs. I had engaged at Bombay two Portuguese boys, Valentino Rodrigues and Caetano Andrade, who resolved that what Sahib Log could endure, that same could they. Having described them once there is no object in saying further of them, except that they were, despite all deficiencies, a great comfort to us; and that they proved themselves, in the long run, better men than the Arab. Taking no interest in ‘African exploration,’ and desirous of seeing only the end of the expedition, they must, poor fellows, have yearned sadly for home, even Goa; and I am rejoiced to think that they both reached it alive.