road in my search for them; however, the satisfaction is, that my
previous arrangements had been such as would have insured my finding
them had they been in a fix .... My projected route would have brought
me vis-a-vis with them, as they had come from the lake by the course I
had proposed to take .... All my men perfectly mad with excitement:
firing salutes as usual with ball cartridge, they shot one of my
donkeys; a melancholy sacrifice as an offering at the completion of this
geographical discovery."

When I first met them they were walking along the bank of the river
towards my boats. At a distance of about a hundred yards I recognised my
old friend Speke, and with a heart beating with joy I took off my cap
and gave a welcome hurrah! as I ran towards him. For the moment he did
not recognize me; ten years' growth of beard and moustache had worked a
change; and as I was totally unexpected, my sudden appearance in the
center of Africa appeared to him incredible. I hardly required an
introduction to his companion, as we felt already acquainted, and after
the transports of this happy meeting we walked together to my diahbiah;
my men surrounding us with smoke and noise by keeping up an unremitting
fire of musketry the whole way. We were shortly seated on deck under the
awning, and such rough fare as could be hastily prepared was set before
these two ragged, careworn specimens of African travel, whom I looked
upon with feelings of pride as my own countrymen. As a good ship arrives
in harbor, battered and torn by a long and stormy voyage, yet sound in
her frame and seaworthy to the last, so both these gallant travelers
arrived at Gondokoro. Speke appeared the more worn of the two; he was
excessively lean, but in reality he was in good tough condition; he had
walked the whole way from Zanzibar, never having once ridden during that
wearying march. Grant was in honourable rags; his bare knees projecting
through the remnants of trowsers that were an exhibition of rough