It was then announced that—inasmuch as my duty compelled me to endeavour to do my utmost to trace the great river to the sea, and as the chiefs and the principal men of the Expedition were resolved to follow me wherever I should lead them—on the fifth day from then we should strike our camp, and form a new and separate camp, and that on the sixth day we should embark, and begin our journey down the river to the ocean—or to death.

Said I: “Into whichever sea this great river empties, there shall we follow it. You have seen that I have saved you a score of times, when everything looked black and dismal for us. That care of you to which you owe your safety hitherto, I shall maintain, until I have seen you safe and sound in your own homes, and under your own palm-trees. All I ask of you is, perfect trust in whatever I say. On your lives depends my own; if I risk yours, I risk mine. As a father looks after his children, I will look after you. It is true we are not so strong as when the Wanyaturu attacked us, or when we marched through Unyoro to Muta Nzigé, but we are of the same band of men, and we are still of the same spirit. Many of our party have already died, but death is the end of all; and if they died earlier than we, it was the will of God, and who shall rebel against His will? It may be we shall meet a hundred wild tribes yet, who, for the sake of eating us, will rush to meet and fight us. We have no wish to molest them. We have moneys with us, and are, therefore, not poor. If they fight us, we must accept it as an evil, like disease, which we cannot help. We shall continue to do our utmost to make friends, and the river is wide and deep. If we fight, we fight for our lives. It may be that we shall be distressed by famine and want. It may be that we shall meet with many more cataracts, or find ourselves before a great lake, whose wild waves we cannot cross with these canoes; but we are not children, we have heads, and arms, and are we not always under the eye of God, who will do with us as He sees fit? Therefore, my children, make up your minds as I have made up mine, that, as we are now in the very middle of this continent, and it would be just as bad to return as to go on, we shall continue our journey, that we shall toil on, and on, by this river and no other, to the salt sea.”^[10]

A loud shout of applause greeted me as I concluded, and Manwa Sera followed it up, and in a few spirited words said that they were bound to let the Wanyamwezi see of what stuff the sea children were made, and, turning to the Arabs, he asked them to look at the black men who were about to perform what they dreaded. Uledi, the coxswain, on behalf of the boat-boys, said that I was their father, and though every one else should refuse to move farther, Frank and I might step into the boat, and he and his friends would dare the long journey that very day!

There was ample work for us all before setting out on our adventurous journey. Food had to be procured and prepared for at least twenty days. Several of the canoes required to be repaired, and all to be lashed in couples, to prevent them from capsizing; and special arrangements required to be made for the transport of three riding-asses, which we had resolved upon taking with us, as a precaution in the event of our being compelled to abandon the canoes and to journey along the banks.

Dec. 25.—Christmas Day we passed most pleasantly and happily, like men determined to enjoy life while it lasted. In the morning we mustered all the men, and appointed them to their respective canoes. Names taken from those British cruisers which had become familiar to the east coast people were also given to them by the Zanzibaris, amid loud laughter, except to half-a-dozen which Frank and I reserved to bear such names as we selected for them.

Canoe races were afterwards instituted between the various vessels, and to the crews who excelled were awarded gifts of cloth. The afternoon was celebrated by foot-races, in which, for the sake of the prizes offered, the Arabs joined, occasioning much amusement to the people. The great event was the race between the famous Tippu-Tib and Francis Pocock. The Arab prepared himself with unusual determination to compete for the prize, a richly chased silver goblet and cup, one of the presents bestowed on me before leaving England. The course was 300 yards, from end to end of the village street. Though Frank exerted himself to the utmost, the sinews of the muscular Arab carried him to the front at the finish by 15 yards. Then the little boys of the Expedition competed with the little boys of the escort, and finally ten young women were induced to attempt to compete for a prize, and their presence on the racecourse convulsed the hundreds assembled to witness the unusual scene. Some were very ungainly and elephantine in their movements, especially Muscati, the wife of the chief Safeni, but others were most graceful of body and lithe of limb, and raced with the swiftness of Atalanta. But the girl Khamisi of Zanzibar was declared the winner.

A dance, by a hundred Wanyamwezi, adorned in all the feathered glory and terror of war, with sounding drums and melodious blasts from ivory horns, terminated the extraordinary festivities.

Dec. 26.—On the 26th Tippu-Tib gave a banquet of rice and roasted sheep to the Expedition, and malofu, or palm-wine, from Mpika Island, assisted to maintain the high spirits and sanguine prospects of success with which these cheery proceedings, festivities, and sports inspired us.

The next day at dawn we embarked all the men, women, and children, 149 souls in all, and the riding-asses of the Expedition, and, telling Tippu-Tib we should on the morrow pull up stream and descend the river close to the village of Vinya-Njara for a last farewell, we pulled across to the islet near the right bank, where we constructed a rude camp for the only night we should remain.

When I ascertained, after arrival, that every soul connected with the Expedition was present, my heart was filled with a sense of confidence and trust such as I had not enjoyed since leaving Zanzibar.

In the evening, while sleep had fallen upon all save the watchful sentries in charge of the boat and canoes, Frank and I spent a serious time.

Frank was at heart as sanguine as I that we should finally emerge somewhere, but, on account of the persistent course of the great river towards the north, a little uneasiness was evident in his remarks.

“Before we finally depart, sir,” said he, “do you really believe, in your inmost soul, that we shall succeed? I ask this because there are such odds against us—not that I for a moment think it would be best to return, having proceeded so far.”

“Believe? Yes, I do believe that we shall all emerge into light again some time. It is true that our prospects are as dark as this night. Even the Mississippi presented no such obstacles to De Soto as this river will necessarily present to us. Possibly its islands and its forests possessed much of the same aspect, but here we are at an altitude of sixteen hundred and fifty feet above the sea. What conclusions can we arrive at? Either that this river penetrates a great distance north of the Equator, and, taking a mighty sweep round, descends into the Congo—this, by the way, would lessen the chances of there being many cataracts in the river;—or that we shall shortly see it in the neighbourhood of the Equator, take a direct cut towards the Congo, and precipitate itself, like our Colorado river, through a deep cañon, or down great cataracts; or that it is either the Niger or the Nile. I believe it will prove to be the Congo; if the Congo, then there must be many cataracts. Let us only hope that the cataracts are all in a lump, close together.

“Any way, whether the Congo, the Niger, or the Nile, I am prepared, otherwise I should not be so confident. Though I love life as much as you do, or any other man does, yet on the success of this effort I am about to stake my life, my all. To prevent its sacrifice foolishly I have devised numerous expedients with which to defy wild men, wild nature, and unknown terrors. There is an enormous risk, but you know the adage, ‘Nothing risked, nothing won.’

“Now look at this, the latest chart which Europeans have drawn of this region. It is a blank, perfectly white. We will draw two curves just to illustrate what I mean. One shows the river reaching the Equator and turning westward. Supposing there are no cataracts, we ought to reach ‘Tuckey’s Furthest’ by the 15th of February; but if the river takes that wider sweep from 2° north of the Equator, we may hope to reach by the 15th of March, and, if we allow a month for cataracts or rapids, we have a right to think that we ought to see the ocean by either the middle or the end of April, 1877.

“I assure you, Frank, this enormous void is about to be filled up. Blank as it is, it has a singular fascination for me. Never has white paper possessed such a charm for me as this has, and I have already mentally peopled it, filled it with most wonderful pictures of towns, villages, rivers, countries, and tribes—all in the imagination—and I am burning to see whether I am correct or not. Believe? I see us gliding down by tower and town, and my mind will not permit a shadow of doubt. Good-night, my boy! Good-night! and may happy dreams of the sea, and ships, and pleasure, and comfort, and success attend you in your sleep! To-morrow, my lad, is the day we shall cry—‘Victory or death!’”