CHAPTEE II. 
BAD RECEPTION AT GONDOKORO. 
All were thankful that the river voyage was con¬ 
cluded ; the tedium of the White Nile will have been 
participated by the reader, upon whom I have inflicted 
the journal, as no other method of description could 
possibly convey an idea of the general desolation. 
Having landed all my stores, and housed my corn in 
some granaries belonging to Koorshid Aga, I took a 
receipt from him for the cpiantity, and gave him an 
order to deliver one-half from my depot to Speke and 
Grant, should they arrive at Gondokoro during my 
absence in the interior. I was under an apprehension 
that they might arrive by some route without my 
knowledge, while I should be penetrating south. 
There were a great number of men at Gondokoro 
belonging to the various traders, who looked upon me 
with the greatest suspicion ; they could not believe 
that simple travelling was my object, and they were 
shortly convinced that I was intent upon espionage in 
their nefarious ivory business and slave-hunting. 
In conversing with the traders, and assuring them 
that my object was entirely confined to a search for 
the Nile sources, and an inquiry for Speke and Grant, 
I heard a curious report that had been brought down 
by the natives from the interior, that at some great 
distance to the south there were two white men who 
had been for a long time prisoners of a sultan; and 
