"Go, my good women," I exclaimed, "and when you arrive at your homes,
explain to your people that you were captured entirely against my will,
and that I am only happy to have released you."
For a few moments they looked around them, as hardly believing the good
news. In another instant, as the truth flashed across their delighted
minds, they rushed upon me in a body, and before I had time for
self-defence, I found myself in the arms of a naked beauty who kissed me
almost to suffocation, and with a most unpleasant embrace licked both my
eyes with her tongue. The sentries came to my assistance, together with
the servants, who withstood the grateful crowd; otherwise both my wife
and myself would have been subjected to this painful thanksgiving from
the liberated Bari women.
Their freedom having been explained, we gave each a present of beads as
a reward for the trouble they had undergone, and they went away
rejoicing, upon the road to their own homes.
We arrived at Gondokoro on 1st April, 1873, without the slightest
disturbance during the march. This was the exact day upon which my term
of service would have expired, according to my original agreement with
the Khedive.
I halted the troops about half a mile from Gondokoro, to allow them to
change their clothes, when I observed with the telescope some of the
Englishmen approaching. Several of my welcome countrymen at length
arrived.
"Where is Mr. Higginbotham?" I asked, as I was eager to see my chief
engineer and friend.
There was a slight pause before the reply - "HE DIED ON THE LAST DAY OF
FEBRUARY!"
I was quite overpowered with the dreadful news! Poor Higginbotham! who
had been my right hand throughout the early portion of the expedition!
He was a man who so thoroughly represented the character that we love to
think is truly English, combining all energy, courage, and perseverance.
He was gone!
We marched into Gondokoro. Fourteen months had made a change for the
worse. I had left the station with a neat ditch and earthwork; the
environs had been clean. It was now a mass of filth. Bones and remnants
of old clothes, that would have been a fortune to a rag-and-bone shop,
lay scattered in all directions. The ditch was filled up with sand, and
the fallen bank washed in by the heavy rains, as it had never been
cleansed during my absence.
The guns fired a salute; Raouf Bey and the troops appeared in good
health; and I was shown into poor Higginbotham's house on the cliff
above the river.
A beautiful new steamer of 108 tons, built of steel, with twin screws,
was floating on the stream.
