INTRODUCTION. xxvii 



to give here my opinions about the future of the province, or 

 the way in which I think that the Central African Question 

 should be solved ; but there is no doubt at all that if wise 

 measures are set on foot, Emm's desire for a " safe road to 

 the coast " may soon be realised, and a way opened up from 

 the Equatorial Province to some port, either Mombasa, or, as 

 -Mr. Eavenstein has suggested, to Kismayu. Supposing for a 

 moment that the latter port were chosen, the transport ques- 

 tion would be greatly simplified. It will be noticed in one of 

 Emin's letters (see p. 390) that he had already introduced 

 camels into his province from Turkan, and there is every reason 

 to suppose that the whole of the country between Lirem, 

 .one of Emin Pasha's stations, and Kismayu, might be traversed 

 by camel- caravans at a rate of some twenty-five or thirty miles 

 a day. The distance as the crow flies from one point to the 

 other is about 650 miles, no great distance surely ; and as the 

 people who inhabit the lower districts, the Masai, are really 

 akin to the Latiika and Lango, with whom, as may be seen 

 from Emin's letters, he has no difficulty at all in dealing, it is 

 only reasonable to suppose that, with care and patience, a trade 

 route could be opened up with very little expenditure of either 

 time or money. Indeed, some such arrangement must be come 

 to, unless it is the intention of this country to relinquish all 

 participation in the commercial activity which is daily receiving 

 greater impetus in Eastern Africa, to abandon to anarchy 

 districts which would well repay any present expenditure, and 

 to relinquish to others the fruits of the labour of many a 

 British explorer, and of a generation of diplomatic and com- 

 mercial effort on the east coast of Africa. 



Two portraits of Emin Pasha are given in this volume. The 

 one was taken in Germany in 1875, and appears in the Ger- 

 man edition ; the other (the frontispiece) is from a photograph 

 taken by the French Consul at Khartum in 1882, and has 

 been specially prepared for this book. 



Knowing the trials with which my friend has had to contend, 



