you have the advantage."

Here the stranger interrupted me with a hearty laugh. "My dear
fellow," he cried, "you are entirely mistaken. The technical advantage
that you attribute to me is an error, as I do _not_ have the honor of
knowing your name, though you may know mine without further
preface,--Frederick Herndon; and the real advantage which I wish to
avail myself of, a boat, is obviously on your side. The long and the
short of it is," he added, (composedly extricating himself from the
brushwood,) "that, travelling up in this direction for discovery and
that sort of thing, you know, I heard at Sennaar that a white man with
an Egyptian servant had just left the town, and were going in my
direction in a boat. So I resolved to overtake them, and with their, or
your, permission, join company. But they, or you, kept just in advance,
and it was only by dint of a forced march in the night that I passed
you. I learned at the last Dinka village that no such party had been
yet seen, and concluded to await the your arrival here, where I pitched
my tent a day and a night waiting for you. I am heartily glad to see
you, I assure you."

With this explanation, the stranger made a spring, and leaped upon the
yacht.

"Upon my word," said I, still bewildered by his sudden appearance, "you
are very unceremonious."

"That," he rejoined, "is a way we Americans have. We cannot stop to
palaver. What would become of our manifest destiny? But since you are
so kind, I will call my Egyptian. Times are changed since we were
bondsmen in Egypt, have they not? Ah, I forgot,--you are not an