Walking Down The Bank Of The River - Where A Line Of Vessels Was
Moored, And On The Right Hand A
Few sheds, one-half broken down,
with a brick-built house representing the late Austrian Church
Mission establishment - we saw
Hurrying on towards us the form of
an Englishman, who, for one moment, we believed was the Simon
Pure; but the next moment my old friend Baker, famed for his
sports in Ceylon, seized me by the hand. A little boy of his
establishment had reported our arrival, and he in an instant came
out to welcome us. What joy this was I can hardly tell. We
could not talk fast enough, so overwhelmed were we both to meet
again. Of course we were his guests in a moment, and learned
everything that could be told. I now first heard of the death of
H.R.H. the Prince-Consort, which made me reflect on the inspiring
words he made use of, in compliment to myself, when I was
introduced to him by Sir Roderick Murchison, a short while before
leaving England. Then there was the terrible war in America, and
other events of less startling nature, which came on us all by
surprise, as years had now passed since we had received news from
the civilised world.
Baker then said he had come up with three vessels - one dyabir and
two nuggers - fully equipped with armed men, camels, horses,
donkeys, beads, brass wire, and everything necessary for a long
journey, expressly to look after us, hoping, as he jokingly said,
to find us on the equator in some terrible fix, that he might
have the pleasure of helping us out of it. He had heard of
Mahamed's party, and was actually waiting for him to come in,
that he might have had the use of his return-men to start with
comfortably. Three Dutch ladies[FN#27], also, with a view to
assist us in the same way as Baker (God bless them), had come
here in a steamer, but were driven back to Khartum by sickness.
Nobody had even dreamt for a moment it was possible we could come
through. An Italian, named Miani, had gone farther up the Nile
than any one else; and he, it now transpired, was the man who had
cut his name on the tree by Apuddo. But what had become of
Petherick? He was actually trading at N'yambara, seventy miles
due west of this, though he had, since I left him in England,
raised a subscription of œ1000, from those of my friends to whom
this Journal is most respectfully dedicated as the smallest
return a grateful heart can give for their attempt to succour me,
when knowing the fate of the expedition was in great jeopardy.
Instead of coming up the Nile at once, as Petherick might have
done - so I was assured - he waited, whilst a vessel was building,
until the season had too far advanced to enable him to sail up
the river.
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