512 Wanderings in Eastern Africa. 
three years in the heart of Africa, with unsuitable 
associates, would be no small trial, especially as 
misunderstandings would be liable to ruin the 
object of the expedition. Finding, however, that 
the gentlemen of the party were disposed to meet 
my views as far as they could, I accepted a posi- 
tion among them, and immediately went to work 
with hearty good will to make the needful pre- 
parations. Among other things it devolved on 
me to make a trip from Zanzibar to Mombasa, in 
order to secure the services of a number of men to act 
as guards upon the expedition; and in connection with 
this trip I narrowly escaped two imminent perils. As 
the journey could not have been made by a sailing 
vessel, on account of the monsoon, the Sultan kindly 
lent us a small steamer, the " Dara Salaam," for the 
purpose. We left port early on Thursday, reach- 
ing Mombasa the following morning. Having com- 
pleted our business, we left Mombasa again on the 
following Wednesday for Zanzibar. For a short cut, 
and to have avoided danger, our proper course would 
have been to have run out to sea, clear of the head- 
lands, and then to have stood straight for port. This 
course the captain (a German) and I wished to have 
pursued. But we had taken on board the Governor of 
Mombasa and suite, who, on account of an unusually 
heavy swell upon the sea, and wishing to spend a 
quiet night, overruled that we should hug the coast, 
and pick our way along the channels among the 
shallows. All went on well till about midnight, when, 
just as I had lain down in the cabin, and had begun 
to doze, the little steamer thumped hard upon a bank. 
I sprang upon deck, where an indescribable scene 
