He is a very fine example of the perseverance,
doggedness, and tenacity which characterise the Anglo-Saxon
spirit; but his ability to withstand the climate is due not only
to the happy constitution with which he was born, but to the
strictly temperate life he has ever led. A drunkard and a man of
vicious habits could never have withstood the climate of Central
Africa.
The second day after my arrival in Ujiji I asked the Doctor if he
did not feel a desire, sometimes, to visit his country, and take
a little rest after his six years' explorations; and the answer
he gave me fully reveals the man. Said he:
"I should like very much to go home and see my children once
again, but I cannot bring my heart to abandon the task I have
undertaken, when it is so nearly completed. It only requires
six or seven months more to trace the true source that I have
discovered with Petherick's branch of the White Nile, or with
the Albert N'Yanza of Sir Samuel Baker, which is the lake
called by the natives `Chowambe.' Why should I go home before
my task is ended, to have to come back again to do what I can
very well do now?"
"And why?" I asked, "did you come so far back without finishing
the task which you say you have got to do?"
"Simply because I was forced. My men would not budge a step
forward. They mutinied, and formed a secret resolution - if I still
insisted upon going on - to raise a disturbance in the country, and
after they had effected it to abandon me; in which case I should
have been killed. It was dangerous to go any further. I had
explored six hundred miles of the watershed, had traced all the
principal streams which discharge their waters into the central
line of drainage, but when about starting to explore the last
hundred miles the hearts of my people failed them, and they set
about frustrating me in every possible way. Now, having returned
seven hundred miles to get a new supply of stores, and another
escort, I find myself destitute of even the means to live but for
a few weeks, and sick in mind and body."
Here I may pause to ask any brave man how he would have comported
himself in such a crisis. Many would have been in exceeding hurry
to get home to tell the news of the continued explorations and
discoveries, and to relieve the anxiety of the sorrowing family
and friends awaiting their return. Enough surely had been
accomplished towards the solution of the problem that had exercised
the minds of his scientific associates of the Royal Geograpical
Society.
