friend, who was Debono's agent here, we took leave, to hunt up
Petherick. 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 [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 L1000, from those of my friends to
whom this Journal is most respectfully dedicated as the smallest return
a grateful heart can give for