162 APPENDIX. [sect. 



beverage after fatigue or exposure to the sun. We carried 

 one small tin canister, about fifteen inches square, filled 

 with spare shirting, trowsers, and shoes, to be used when 

 we reached civilised life, and others in a bag, which were 

 expected to wear out on the way ; another of the same size 

 for medicines; and a third for books, my stock being a 

 Nautical Almanac, Thomson's Logarithm Tables, and a 

 Bible; a fourth box contained a magic lantern, which we 

 found of much use. The sextant and artificial horizon, 

 thermometer and compasses, were carried apart. My am- 

 munition was distributed in portions through the whole 

 luggage, so that, if an accident should befall one part, we 

 could still have others to fall back upon. Our chief hopes 

 for food were upon that, but in case of failure I took about 

 20 lbs. of beads, worth 40.?. which still remained of the 

 .stock I brought from Cape Town; a small gipsy-tent, just 

 sufficient to sleep in; a sheepskin mantle as a blanket, and 

 a horse-rug as a bed. As I had always found that the art 

 of successful travel consisted in taking as few e impedi- 

 menta' as possible, and not forgetting to carry my wits 

 about me, the outfit was rather spare, and intended to 

 be still more so when we should come to leave the canoes. 

 Some would consider it injudicious to adopt this plan, but 

 I had a secret conviction that if I did not succeed it would 

 not be for lack of the ' nicknacks' advertised as indispen- 

 sable for travellers, but from want of 'pluck/ or because a 

 large array of baggage excited the cupidity of the tribes 

 through whose country we wished to pass. 



" The instruments I carried, though few, were the best of 

 their kind. A sextant, by the famed makers Troughton 

 and Sims of Fleet-Street; a chronometer watch, with a stop 

 to the second's hand — an admirable contrivance for enabling 



o 



a person to take the exact time of observations; it was 

 constructed by Dent of the Strand (61) for the Royal 

 Geographical Society, and selected for the service by the 



