316 
TEAVELS IN CENTEAL AEEICA. 
I have been very ill. Dr. Murie requested permission to return 
to Europe; our men have mutinied ; thus are we deserted. We 
were to have gone in search of the unexplored lake^ but the men 
would not accompany us^ so we now are to return to Khartoum^ 
visiting the Sobat ere we do so. 
March 2^th . — The few preparations in Petherick^s power to make 
were completed^ and at two p.m. the Kathleen left Gondokoro. 
Wind failing, the crew at the sweeps pulled us from that shore 
where lay our wrecked hopes. 
One boat, a nugger, was the consort : she carried Luxor (now 
almost a skeleton) ; he, too, had shared ill fortune, and had been 
neglected. Of our once large force, three soldiers now formed our 
guard ; and of sailors there was the smallest possible complement 
consistent with safety. Foxcroft, poor boy ! sadly feeble and shaken, 
accompanied us, also a little negress, the only one rescued from 
Abd il Majid whom we had been unable to restore to her relatives ; 
and though on two or three opportunities she had been sent to 
distant villages which she had named, where probably some of her 
kindred might be, none were found : one village had been partially 
destroyed, and the inhabitants had fled. I took the forlorn one 
under my protection. She was a tiny child, not more, apparently, 
than seven years of age, pretty and intelligent. I clothed her, and 
gave her the fanciful name of Zitella. Cook Rechan and his wife, 
the widow of poor Mussaad, also went with us. A few other servants 
and a dozen soldiers sailed in the nugger. To Ringa, our faithful 
Neam Neam attendant, we bade adieu a day or two previously. He 
wished to return to our station at Wayo, and from thence to escort 
the wives of Abderachman, his kinsman, to their home amongst 
the Neam Neam. 
