90 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



Yet it had its enjoyments. There were no post- 

 offices, and this African Eden had other advan- 

 tages, which, probably, I might vainly attempt to 

 describe. 



On the 29th of March the rattling of matchlocks an- 

 nounced my companion's return. The Masika had 

 done its worst upon him. I never saw a man so 

 thoroughly moist and mildewed ; he justified even 

 the French phrase " wet to the bone." His para- 

 phernalia were in a similar state ; his guns were grained 

 with rust, and his fire-proof powder-magazine had ad- 

 mitted the monsoon-rain. I was sorely disappointed : 

 he had done literally nothing. About ten days before 

 his return I had been visited by Khamis bin Jumah, 

 an Arab merchant, who, on the part of the proprietor of 

 the dow, gave the gratifying message that we could have 

 it when we pleased. I cannot explain where the mis- 

 management lay ; it appears, however, that the wily " son 

 of Sulayyam " detained the traveller simply for the pur- 

 pose of obtaining from him gratis a little gunpowder. 

 My companion had rested content with the promise that 

 after three months the dow should be let to us for a sum 

 of 500 dollars ! and he had returned without boat or pro- 

 visions to report ill success. The faces of Said bin Salirn 

 and the Jemadar, when they heard the period mentioned, 

 were indeed a study. I consoled him and myself as I 

 best could, and applied myself to supplying certain defi- 

 ciencies as regards orthography and syntax in a diary 

 which appeared in Blackwood, of September 1859, 

 under the title " Journal of a Cruise in the Tanganyika 

 Lake, Central Africa." I must confess, however, my sur- 

 prise at, amongst many other things, the vast horseshoe 

 of lofty mountain placed by my companion in the map 

 attached to that paper, near the very heart of Sir E. 



