22 PREPAKATIONS FOK JOURNEY TO AFRICA. 



north, and accompany him to the southward ; promising, at 

 the same time, to pay the whole of my expenses. This offer 

 awoke within me all my former ambition ; and, although I 

 could not be blind to the difficulties and dangers that must 

 necessarily attend such an expedition, I embraced, after some 

 hesitation, Mr. Galton's tempting and liberal proposal. 



Preparations for our long and hazardous journey were now 

 rapidly made. An immense quantity o goods of every kind 

 was speedily amassed, intended partly for barter and partly 

 for presents to barbarous chiefs. Muskets, long sword-knives, 

 boar-spears, axes, hatchets, clasp and strike-light knives, 

 Dutch tinder-boxes, daggers, burning-glasses, compasses, gilt 

 rings (copper or brass), alarums, beads of every size and col- 

 or, wolf-traps, rat-traps, old military dresses, cast-off embas- 

 sador's uniforms — these, and a host of other articles too vari- 

 ous to enumerate, formed our stock in trade. 



To the above we added, mostly for our own use, guns and 

 rifles, a vast quantity of ammunition of all kinds, instru- 

 ments for taking observations, arsenical and other prepara- 

 tions for preserving objects of natural history, writing mate- 

 rials, sketch-books, paints, pencils, canteens, knives, forks, 

 dishes, &c. 



It was also deemed advisable that we should take with us 

 boats for the navigation of Lake Ngami, those used by the 

 natives being unsafe. We therefore supplied ourselves with 

 three, each adapted for a specific purpose. 



Having thus provided, as far as possible, for all emer- 

 gences, we transferred ourselves and baggage on board the 

 splendid but unfortunate ship, the Dalhousie.* Here we 



* It will doubtless be remembered that, in a gale of wind off the 

 British coast, the Dalhousie was thrown on her beam-ends, and found- 

 ered in half an hour afterward, when, with a single exception, every 

 soul on board perished. Out of the several vessels in which I have at 

 different times been a passenger, the Dalhousie is the third that has 

 perished shortly after my leaving her ! 



