204 
TEAYELS IN CENTEAL AFEICA. 
choked the voice of the man who was to reeount their misfortunes ; 
hut recovering himself and kissing my hand^ he said^ 
The day w^e left you we were taken up and down the lagoon, 
disembarked twice at different points distant from the shore, and 
re-embarking, we were conducted to a fisherman^s camp on an 
island in the lagoon, opposite Atwat, where we encamped the night 
of the 5th. The fishermen, with a vague warning that we were in 
bad hands, decamped ere the morning. Their doing so was ac- 
counted for by the ferrymen, who said that the people of the island 
proposed to rob us, but that they preventing it, the fishermen ran 
away. At sunrise we again embarked without suspicion, and when 
in deep water simultaneously they capsized us ; whilst clinging to 
reeds, and in some instances to the canoes, the negroes savagely 
clubbed us. Some of us still retained our rifles, and after gaining 
footing on the reeds, notwithstanding the immersion, three of us 
discharged them, each killing a negro. This frightened the rest, 
and they hastily decamped, leaving five capsized canoes in our 
possession. Righting them, we picked up the body of Khalifa, 
but that of Ahmed we could not find. Recovering two more rifles 
and a small portion of the baggage, we have since the affray been 
endeavouring to find our way back to you, and not having a guide, 
it has been a tedious and difficult matter, but ^ God is great.^ 
Independent of the sad loss of life, irreparable stores and provi- 
sions are gone, photographic lenses and chemicals, a box of arsenical 
soap, and flaying instruments (a present to my wife from Mr. Gould) , 
the whole of our stock of beads, three negro-loads of lead and 
ball, several elephant rifles and muskets, the tusks of the elephant 
shot on August 21st, and the whole of the men^s, and a portion of 
the Doctor^ s. Carious, Foxcroft^s, and our own clothing, are irrevo- 
cably lost. We retain no provisions worth naming; the rainy season 
