379 



CONCLUSION. 



On the 9th February the Battela and the stores required 

 for our trip arrived at Konduchi from Zanzibar, and the 

 next day saw us rolling down the coast, with a fair fresh 

 breeze, towards classic Kilwa, the Quiloa of De Gama, 

 of Camoens, and of the Portuguese annalists. I shall re- 

 serve an account of this most memorable shore for a fu- 

 ture work devoted especially to the seaboard of Zanzibar 

 — coast and island : — in the present tale of adventure 

 the details of a cabotage would be out of place. Suf- 

 fice it to say that we lost nearly all our crew by the 

 cholera, which, after ravaging the eastern coast of 

 Arabia and Africa, and the islands of Zanzibar and 

 Pemba, had almost depopulated the southern settlements 

 on the mainland. We were unable to visit the course 

 of the great Rufiji River, a counterpart of the Zambezi 

 in the south, and a water-road which appears destined to 

 become the highway of nations into Eastern equatorial 

 Africa. No man dared to take service on board the in- 

 fected vessel; the Hindu Banyans, who directed the Copal 

 trade of the river regions aroused against us the chiefs 

 of the interior; moreover, the stream was in flood, 

 overflowing its banks, and its line appeared marked by 

 heavy purple clouds, which discharged a deluge of rain. 

 Convinced that the travelling season was finished, I 

 turned the head of the Battela northwards, and on the 

 4th March, 1859, after a succession of violent squalls 

 and pertinacious calms, we landed once more upon the 

 island of Zanzibar. 



Sick and way-worn I entered the house connected in 

 memory with an old friend, not without a feeling of 



