INTRODUCTORY. 
13 
difficulties of African expedition and the exigencies of 
travel in a barbarous country would enable me to con¬ 
duct the expedition to Kilima-njaro with some cliance 
of success. Unfortunately the sum of 1000Z. placed 
at my disposal, although sufficient with due economy 
to meet the ordinary expenses of the expedition, 
would not permit of European collectors being taken, 
the cost of the passage-money, salary, and keep of 
two men amounting to nearly half the sum already 
mentioned. However, this difficulty did not much 
concern me at the time, as one or two collectors were 
promised from the Calcutta Botanical Gardens, whose 
expenses would have been defrayed by their employers 
in return for a set of specimens collected. But on 
arriving at Zanzibar I was disappointed of their aid, 
for it was found at the last moment impossible to 
induce any Indian collectors to join an expedition to 
Central Africa. Consequently I had to depend on the 
chance aid of such natives of Zanzibar accompanying 
my caravan as might evince any taste for a collector’s 
duties. Sir John Kirk, indeed, procured for me two 
men who had been with Dr. Fischer during his recent 
expedition, and who had an elementary knowledge of 
drying plants and skinning birds ; but these men, on 
account of their superior attainments, were so exacting 
and difficult to deal with, that when they deserted me 
soon after my arrival on the mountain and went to 
a neighbouring chief to organize his slave-trading 
caravans, I did not miss them keenly. Nevertheless, 
after this, the entire charge of collecting fell upon me, 
adding to the already existing and by no means per¬ 
functory cares of superintending the expedition. I 
not only had to conduct long and wearisome palavers 
with native chiefs, and talk them into acquiescence 
