126 
TEAVELS IN CENTEAL AFEICA. 
charging yon with some former participation in slavery. Of course 
the seals of numerous natives ornamented the document.'’^ 
With reference to this suhjeet_, the men reported that the arrests 
above alluded to^ and my reports to the loeal Government charging 
every native trader that I had met with participation in that traffic, 
had created great excitement and indignation at Khartoum, and 
that they had heard it currently stated that, in revenge, some 
paper charging me with a similar offence at some former period 
had been put into eirculation for signature amongst the traders. 
They further informed me of the circulation of the report of my 
death and party, and that they had set out from Gondokoro to 
ascertain the truth of that statement, and expressed the greatest 
joy in meeting me. They now returned with me to Gondokoro, 
where we arrived on February 20th, 1863. 
When within sight of this long-desired haven, I cannot express 
the gratification and intense relief we experienced at thus having 
at last realized our object. It had seemed to us something like a 
phantom : the nlore we advanced and toiled, the farther it appeared 
to recede. When leaving our boats at Aboo Kuka, we had buoyed 
ourselves up with the hope of reaching this place in the course of 
a month, or six weeks at the outside. Alas ! how vain were our 
hopes ! In lieu of travelling some one hundred and fifty miles, 
we had, owing to ignorance of the extent of lowland flooded by 
this untoward and unexampled inundation, traversed four hundred 
miles; thus this journey, instead of six weeks, took us seven 
months^ arduous exertion to accomplish, and, attended as it was 
with loss of life to some of our followers, and with more sickness, 
privation, pain, and misery to all concerned than it ever has been 
my ill fortune to have experienced, it proved an undertaking of 
greater difficulty to accomplish than it is in my power to explain. 
