26 



NATURE 



[Nov. 12, 1874 



poisoned against him by the machinations of the demo- 

 niacal Abou Saood,the representative of the great slaving 

 firm of Agad & Co. of Khartoum, who had obtained from 

 the Governor-General of Soudan a monopoly of the trade 

 of all the Upper Nile district, extending over an area of 

 90,000 square miles. The great majority of his own 

 officers and men, moreover, he found to be hostile to the 

 purpose of the expedition, some of them being even 

 secretly in league with the slave-traders. It was only by 

 the exercise of rigid discipline and almost superhuman 

 patience that between the hostile and treacherous tribes 

 around and the " foes of his own house," the whole expe- 

 dition did not fall to pieces. He was at last compelled 

 in self-defence to fight the native tribes, and one 



cannot but be struck with admiration at the skill with 

 which he, with a handful of men — and the " Forty Thieves " 

 were the only soldiers he could really depend upon — 

 managed to keep his myriad enemies at bay. Happily he 

 did ultimately succeed in convincing the natives that his 

 intentions were earnest and disinterested, and before his 

 return north he did succeed in thwarting the machina- 

 tions of his great' enemy Abou Saood, and clearing the 

 country for many miles around his route of the slave- 

 hunting brigands. 



In January 1872 Sir Samuel started southwards with a 

 small force of only about 200 officers and men ; for the 

 1,200 with which he arrived at Gondokoro had by sick- 

 ness, death, and desertion dwindled down to 500, 300 of 





I pp.-ige — The Bal€nici:/'s 



whom he had to leave behind him to garrison Gondokoro. 

 Amid incredible difficulties, the small force reached 

 Fatiko in the beginning of February. Fatiko is on the 

 third parallel N., about seventy miles east of the head 

 of the Albert N'yanza. After a short stay here, Sir Samuel, 

 leaving half of his men behind, marched southwards to 

 Unyoro, the capital of which, Masindi, he reached after 

 disheartening delays and treacheries and equivocations 

 on the part of the native chiefs, on April 25, 1872. The 

 king of the district was Kabba Rdga, a son of Baker's 

 wily old friend Kamrasi. He turned out to be a trea- 

 cherous, greedy, drunken, utterly irreclaimable "young 

 cub," who under the influence of Abou Saood did his 

 best to crumple up the small party which had entrusted 

 themselves to his mercy. Sir Samuel at this, the southern 



limit of his journey, did his best to plant the seeds of 

 civilisation and a healthy commerce, but we fear suc- 

 ceeded in making little impression on the besotted Kabba 

 Rega, who in the end, we are glad to find, was beaten by 

 his well-intentioned brother Rionga, with the assistance 

 of Sir Samuel. Here the latter endeavoured to obtain 

 news of and to communicate with Livingstone by means 

 of emissaries from M'Tese's country and other districts to 

 the southward ; and here he obtained reports which 

 tended to confirm his conjecture that the Albert N'yanza 

 extends south to a great distance, and communicates with 

 Tanganyika. Sir Samuel, in his map, has filled in many 

 names of tribes between the two N'yanzas, and we hope 

 that the result of his expedition will be the more thorough 

 exploration of this interesting district. 



