The Latter Would Hold Comfortably Six Men, With Suitable Stores.

I did not intend to carry the boats whole or bodily, but to strip them of their boards, and carry the timbers and thwarts only.

As a substitute for the boards, I proposed to cover each boat with a double canvas skin well tarred. The work of stripping them and taking them to pieces fell to me. This little job occupied me five days.

I also packed them up, for the pagazis. Each load was carefully weighed, and none exceeded 68 lbs. in weight. John Shaw excelled himself in the workmanship displayed on the canvas boats; when finished, they fitted their frames admirably. The canvas - six bolts of English hemp, No. 3 - was procured from Ludha Damji, who furnished it from the Sultan's storeroom.

An insuperable obstacle to rapid transit in Africa is the want of carriers, and as speed was the main object of the Expedition under my command, my duty was to lessen this difficulty as much as possible. My carriers could only be engaged after arriving at Bagamoyo, on the mainland. I had over twenty good donkeys ready, and I thought a cart adapted for the footpaths of Africa might prove an advantage. Accordingly I had a cart constructed, eighteen inches wide and five feet long, supplied with two fore-wheels of a light American wagon, more for the purpose of conveying the narrow ammunition-boxes. I estimated that if a donkey could carry to Unyanyembe a load of four frasilahs, or 140 lbs., he ought to be able to draw eight frasilahs on such a cart, which would be equal to the carrying capacity of four stout pagazis or carriers.

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