ho had come from the SEA! Could they be Speke
and Grant? Off I ran, and soon met them in reality. Hurrah for old
England! They had come from the Victoria N'yanza, from which the Nile
springs.... The mystery of ages solved! With my pleasure of meeting them
is the one disappointment, that I had not met them farther on the 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 the two explorers they were walking along the bank
of the river toward my boats. At a distance of about a hundred yards I
recognized my old friend Speke, and with a heart beating with joy I
took off my cap and gave a welcome hurrah! as I ran toward him. For the
moment he did not recognize me. Ten years' growth of beard and mustache
had worked a change; and as I was totally unexpected, my sudden
appearance in the centre 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 travellers arrived at Gondokoro. Speke
appeared the more worn of the two; he was excessively lean, but in
reality was in good, tough condition. He had walked the whole way from
Zanzibar, never having once ridden during that wearying march. Grant
was in honorable rags, his bare knees projecting through the remnants of
trousers that were an exhibition of rough industry in tailor's work. He
was looking tired and feverish, but both men had a fire in the eye that
showed the spirit that had led them th