CONSTRUCTION OF A LARGE PONTOON. 627 



robust sick, the leader will be half ready to despair, and to wish that he had 

 never ventured a second time into the sea of mishaps and troubles which 

 beset the traveller in Africa ! These are my anticipations, which are none of 

 the brightest, you will allow. However, when the soldier has donned his 

 helmet, it is too late to deplore the feelings that induced him to enlist. 



" Among many other things which I convey with me on this expedition 

 to make our work as thorough as possible is a large pontoon, named the 

 ' Livingstone.' A traveller having experience of the difficulties which pre- 

 vent efficient exploration is not likely to enter Africa without being provided 

 with almost every requisite likely to remove the great obstacles which lack 

 of means of ferryage presents. After I had accepted the command of this 

 expedition I began to devise and invent the most portable kind of floating 

 expedient or vehicle to transport baggage and men across streams and lakes, 

 so as to render me independent of the native chiefs. I thought of everything 

 I had seen likely to suit my purpose. Zinc tubes, such as the Engineer 

 Department conveyed to the Prah in the late Ashantee War — canvas boats 

 such as Marcy, in his ' Prairie Traveller,' recommends, the devices and con- 

 trivances suggested in ' Art of Travel,' india-ruober boats, Irish wicker boats, 

 and so forth ; but all the things I thought of that previous travellers had 

 experimented with seemed to me objectionable on account of their weight and 

 insufficient floating power. It is one of the most interesting things in African 

 travel, among chains of lakes and numerous large rivers, to resolve the pro- 

 blem of navigating these waters safely and expeditiously without subjecting 

 an expedition to the caprice and extortion of an ignorant savage chief, or 

 entailing upon yourself heavy expense for porterage. As no carts or wagons 

 can be employed in conveying boats or zinc pontoons through the one-foot- 

 wide paths which are the channels of overland trade in Central Africa, zinc 

 pontoons were not to be thought of. A metal tube eighteen inches in diameter 

 and eight feet long would form a good load for the strongest porter ; but fancy 

 the number of tubes of this size required to convey across a lake fifty miles 

 wide a force of three hundred men and about nine tons of the baggage and 

 material of my expedition. And what kind of boat could transport such a 

 number and weight across such a stormy lake — such a boat, I mean, as we 

 could carry with us, at a moderate rapid rate of travel, a distance of from 

 one thousand to two thousand miles ? After long and anxious deliberation and 

 sacrifice of much paper, I sketched out a series of inflatable pontoon tubes to 

 be two feet in diameter, and eight feet long, to be laid transversely, resting 

 on three separate keels, and securely lashed to them, with two separate tri- 

 angular compartments of the same depth, eight feet at the base, which should 

 form the bow and stern of the inflatable craft. Over these several sections 

 three lengthy poles were to be laid which should be lashed between each 

 transverse tube to the three keels underneath. Above these upper poles, 



