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this situation. A miserable dug-out canoe half-filled with water came alongside to take us ashore. And so at last, as the sun was going down, our little company stood safe and sound on African soil.

It is needless to dwell much upon the details of our outfit, but I may mention some of the mistakes which were made : we were provided with Epsom salts by the stone, but found ourselves short of common table salt. Our large supply of castor oil was but a poor compensation for the entire absence of such a necessary as butter, and for my part I would gladly have exchanged our elaborate distilling apparatus for another common tea-kettle. The ordinary equipment of an African traveller consists of tents, camp-beds, chairs, stools, buckets, pots, pans, cups and saucers, plates, blankets, guns, pistols, boxes of clothes and books, scientific instruments, provisions and medicines. He carries with him also goods for barter, consisting of bales of cloth made up into loads of from sixty to seventy pounds ; beads of various kinds, copper, brass and iron wire, gunpowder, and soap, which is a very important article of commerce in the interior.

Our caravan was made up of nearly five hundred porters, or Wapagazi, as they are called — none too many for a large party of seven white men, a greater number of Europeans than is usually seen together in Central Africa. Our leader was Mr. Charles Stokes, who had already made the journey to Uganda ; the others were the Revs. James Hannington (the future