APPENDIX A. 
Ill 
As a farther accessory to our probable requirements in the 
interior^ I took with me some artizans^ i.e., a smithy two sliip- 
carpenterS; sawyers^ caulkers^ &c.^ and every necessary for their 
work with the exception of timber^ which I hoped to find on the 
spot where we should require to build boats^ either to navigate the 
Nile above the reported cataracts beyond Gondokoro, or any lake 
we might happen to strike. 
Our expedition, the most extensive belonging to a private indi- 
vidual that had ever left Khartoum, having at length surmounted 
all difficulties, on the 28th March, 1863, started on its mission. 
Everything went as, well as might have been expected until our 
arrival at the Sob at, when the premature setting in of the rainy 
season caused occasional vexatious calms, and, to our dismay, 
contrary winds, and towing became necessary. 
On April 17th we passed the confluence of the Bahar il Gazal; 
and on the 28th met an Arab trader^s boat from Gondokoro, that 
could give us no tidings of the expected advent of Speke, but 
informed us that our exploring party under Abd il Majid had 
penetrated the interior, and were, as far as they knew, all well. 
On May 12th, at Aliab, finding a small space of muddy land, 
the highest point scarcely a foot above the flood, we availed our- 
selves thereof for discharging our thoroughly saturated stores of 
every description to repair our damaged spars and rigging, and to 
refit our leaky craft. We were joined by two parties from Gondo- 
koro with four boats ; two of which, with their owners, Hhurshid 
Aga, an ivory trader and famous for slave kidnapping and cattle 
lifting, and Amabile Musa de Bono, a Maltese, made fast along- 
side ; the remaining two boats anchoring at a considerable distance 
down the stream. They were but six days from Gondokoro, 
where Amabile had been a week, and had left his station at 
