438 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



to accompany me is the best proof that I had not lost the confi- 

 dence of the people. Finally, on arrival at the coast, I inquired 

 concerning those porters who had deserted us, and was informed 

 by the Diwan and headman of the village, that they had 

 returned to their homes in the interior, after a stay of a few days 

 on the seaboard. This was a regrettable occurrence, but such 

 events are common on the slave-path in Eastern Africa, and 

 the established custom of the Arabs and other merchants, 

 whom I had consulted upon the subject before leaving the 

 interior, is, not to encourage desertion by paying part of the 

 hire, or by settling for porterage before arriving at the coasts. 

 Of the seven gangs of porters engaged on this journey, only one, 

 an unusually small proportion, left me without being fully 

 satisfied. 



" 10. That Said bin Salim, and Ramji, the Banyan, should 

 have appealed to Captain Rigby, according to the fashion of 

 Orientals, after my departure from Zanzibar, for claims which 

 they should have advanced when I refused to admit them, I am 

 not astonished. But I must express my extreme surprise that 

 Captain Speke should have written two private letters, forcibly 

 pointing out the claims of these men to Captain Rigby, without 

 having communicated the circumstance in any way to me, the 

 chief of the Expedition. I have been in continued correspon- 

 dence with that officer since my departure from Zanzibar, and 

 until this moment I have been impressed with the conviction 

 that Captain Speke's opinion as to the claims of the guide and 

 escort above alluded to was identical with my own. 



" 11. With respect to the last paragraph of Captain Rigby's 

 letter, proposing that a shawl or some small mark of satis- 

 faction should be presented by Government to Ladha Damha, 

 the custom-master at Zanzibar, for his assistance to the Expedi- 

 tion, I distinctly deny the gratuitous assertions that I was en- 

 tirely dependent on him for money and supplies ; that he advanced 

 considerable sums of money without any security ; that he 

 forwarded all requisite supplies, or, as Captain Speke affirms, 

 that he afforded the Expedition every assistance in the most 

 handsome manner. Before quitting Zanzibar for inner Africa, 

 I settled all accounts with him, and left a small balance in his 

 hands, and I gave, for all subsequent supplies, an order upon 

 Messrs. Forbes, my agents in Bombay. He, like the other 

 Hindus at Zanzibar, utterly neglected me after the death of 

 Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton ; and Captain Rigby has probably 

 seen some of the letters of complaint which were sent by 

 me from the interior. In fact, my principal merit in having 

 conducted the Expedition to a successful issue is in having con- 



