Chap. L. DESPATCHES AND LETTERS. 
407 
then sewn in red and yellow leather, without saying a 
word about the other parcel ; but when I had read at 
my leisure the despatches which honoured me with the 
confidence of Her Britannic Majesty's government, 
and had rewarded his zeal with a new shirt, he went 
away, and soon returned with the second parcel, 
and a packet containing ten turkedi, native cotton 
cloth, from Kano, which at Mr. Overweg's request the 
vizier of Bornu had sent me, and three of which I 
immediately presented to the messenger and his two 
companions. 
The number of private letters from England, as 
well as from Germany, was very considerable ; and all 
of them contained the acknowledgment of what I had 
done, the greatest recompense which a traveller in 
these regions can ever aspire to. No doubt the 
responsibility also thus thrown upon me was very 
great, and the conclusion at which I had arrived from 
former experience, that I should not be able to fulfil 
the many exaggerated expectations which were en- 
tertained of my future proceedings, was oppressive ; 
for, in almost all the letters from private individuals, 
there was expressed the persuasion that I and rny 
companion should be able, without any great exertion, 
and in a short space of time, to cross the whole of 
the unknown region of equatorial Africa, and reach 
the south-eastern coast, — an undertaking the idea of 
which certainly I myself had originated, but Avhich, I 
had become convinced in the course of my travels, 
was utterly impossible, except at the sacrifice of a 
D D 4 
