APPENDIX A. 
133 
under the tender care of your fair Fatma.* To-morrow we hope 
to he well away in the early morning, consigning your small 
packages to their destination in as good order as you gave 
them to us. The spades you were good enough to give me, 
I have made over to Fatty, as our reis bought sheep on the way 
with dollars. I was sorry to find, on arrival here, that the 
townspeople had reported you dead, and in consequence of it 
the Eoyal Geographical Society had determined on sending the 
second thousand pounds to Baker, with a view to assist him in 
looking after us. 
“ This now was too bad, for Hhalil f never gave the slightest 
credence to the report brought down by the merchants, and said 
so in answer to his brother’s inquiries concerning it at Cairo. 
‘‘ To make the best of the matter, and to do justice to all, I 
wrote home a full explanation of our conversation at home before 
we left England, and the position in which we met at Gondokoro. 
“ Should you feel inclined to write a full statement of the 
difficulties you had to contend with in going up the White Nile, 
it would be a great relief to the mind of every person connected 
with the succouring funds, and also to myself, as the peoples’ 
tongues are always busy in this meddling world. 
“With Grant’s best wishes, conjointly with my own, to Mrs. 
Petherick and yourself, for your health and safety in the far 
interior, 
“ Believe me, 
“ Yours truly, 
“ J. H. SPEKE.” 
The unpleasantness with Speke was but a preliminary to my ill 
fortune at Gondokoro. Hhurshid and Agad’s men, a few days in 
My housekeeper. 
f Hhalil, my Arab agent at Khartoum. 
