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His statements were corroborated by a Hindoo merchant called Musa, who gave him also a description of the country northward of the line, and of the rivers which flowed out of the lake. Eager to explore the country, Speke arranged to set off, leaving Captain Burton at Caze. Sheikh Snay, however, refused to accompany him, and he had in consequence some difficulty in arranging with the Belooch guard.
They being dismissed, a band of musicians came in, when pomba was drunk by the queen, and handed to her visitor and high officers and attendants. She smoked her pipe, and bid Speke to smoke his.
"He gets away the next day, and reaches a fish market, in the little island of Kabizia, in time to breakfast on a large, black-backed, scaleless monster, the singa. The sailors considering it delicious, are disinclined to move on. "Again detained by a high wind, they cross, at noon on the 11th, to Kasenge, where Sheikh Hamer, an Arab merchant, receives Speke with warm and generous hospitality.
In March, 1861, I commenced an expedition to discover the sources of the Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African expedition of Captains Speke and Grant, that had been sent by the English Government from the South via Zanzibar, for the same object.
Speke endeavoured to impress on the stupid-headed king that his only object was to open up a communication along the Nile, by which boats could bring up the produce and manufactures of other countries, to exchange with his ivory. The king evidently wished to detain them, in order that they might assist him in putting down an insurrection which his two brothers had raised against him.
I could not help wondering at the curious combination of pride and abject cowardice that had been displayed by the redoubted Kamrasi ever since our first entrance to his territory. Speke when at Gondokoro had told me how he had been kept waiting for fifteen days before the king had condescended to see him.
The travellers slept in a deserted Kraal, surrounded by a stout fence of Acacia thorns heaped up to keep out the leopards and hyenas. During the heat Lieutenant Speke sat under a tree.
On 7th April he was back again at Berbera, taking with him Speke, Stroyan, Herne and 42 assistants, and his first care was to establish an agency on the coast, so as to have the protection of the English gunboat, the "Mahi," which had brought them.
Speke, who had extricated his hands, caught the spear levelled at his breast, but received at the same moment a blow from a club which, paralyzing his arm, caused him to lose his hold. In defending his heart from a succession of thrusts, he received severe wounds on the back of his hand, his right shoulder, and his left thigh.
Finally the senior officers came charging at their king, making violent protestations of faith and honesty, for which they were applauded. Speke was now, towards the end of May, looking forward to the arrival of Grant.
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