APPENDIX A. 
179 
presently quote — will be sufficient to contradict this assertion. He 
also goes on to say^ they bought certain articles as any other 
customers might have done.^^ Had Captain Grant been aware of, 
or recollected, Captain Speke^s letter to me, he would have hesi- 
tated before making so unfounded an assertion. 
In the letter referred to, dated Gondokoro, Tebruary 24th, 1863, 
after asking to be supplied with three pieces of American sheeting 
and a few other necessaries, Speke says : 
I have already taken from your stores, on account, 96 yards of 
American sheeting, which, together with the above, I could either 
repay you at Khartoum, Cairo, or London — just as you please. 
Captain Grant also forgot that Speke and himself, when at Gon- 
dokoro, were destitute, and naturally unable to pay for anything 
they might desire to purchase. Speke further says in his work 
(page 606) : 
My men begged for some clothes, as Petherick, they said, had 
a store for me under the charge of his vakil. The storekeeper was 
then called, confirming the story of my men : I begged of him to 
give me what was my own. It turned out it was all PethericlCs, 
hut he had orders to give me on account anything I wanted. This 
being settled, I took 95 yards of the commonest stuff as a make- 
shift for mosquito curtains for my men, besides four sailors^ shirts 
for my head men.^'’ 
On the following page he goes on to say : 
At his (Petherick^ s) urgent request, I took a few yards of 
cloth for my own men and some cooking fat ; and though I offered 
to pay for it, he declined to accept any return at my hands. 
Neither Speke nor Grant have in any form acknowledged that 
during their sojourn at Gondokoro my stores supplied their men 
with daily rations of grain; but this is of little importance. 
12 — 2 
