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Burton experimented sufficiently for me on the promised word of the Banyans of Kaole and Zanzibar, and waited eleven months before he received the promised articles. As I did not expect to be much over that time on my errand altogether, it would be ruin, absolute and irremediable, should I be detained at Unyanyembe so long a time by my caravan.
Crossing to Kaole, on the mainland, on the 16th of June, 1857, they were detained there collecting baggage animals. The first five hundred miles of their journey to Caze, a place in the centre of Unyamuezi, the Land of the Moon, was performed with comparative ease, and they were subjected only to annoyances from the savage people and the grasping chiefs on the way.
On another occasion, when I was hippopotamus-hunting in one of the boats of the Artemise, in an inlet of the sea close to Kaole, I chased a herd of hippopotami in deep water, till one of the lot, coming as usual from below, drove a tusk clean through the boat with such force that he partially hoisted her out of the water; but the brute did no further damage, for I kept him off by making the men splash their oars rapidly whilst making for the shore, where we just arrived in time to save ourselves from sinking.
Colonel Hamerton was so anxious for the success of the expedition, that he obtained a man-of-war the corvette Artemise from the Sultan on the 16th June 1857, and accompanied us over to Kaole on the mainland, notwithstanding at the time he was dangerously ill. For some time we were detained here collecting baggage animals to carry our property.
Now we did land at Kaole, close to Bagamoyo, but the route from Kilwa to Nyassa was afterwards safely traversed by Dr Boscher, though, after that, Boscher was murdered by some thieves in Whiyow.
It would be better, therefore, if Ali bin Salim would stay away from my camp, and not enter it either in person or by proxy. I had lost fifteen days, for Jemadar Sadur, at Kaole, had never stirred from his fortified house in that village in my service, save to pay a visit, after the receipt of the Sultan's letter.
Having answered each question to his Highness' satisfaction, he handed me letters of introduction to his officers at Bagamoyo and Kaole, and a general introductory letter to all Arab merchants whom I might meet on the road, and concluded his remarks to me, with the expressed hope, that on whatever mission I was bound, I should be perfectly successful.
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