The 27th of December has arrived; it is the day of our departure from Ujiji.  I was probably about to give an eternal farewell to the port whose name will for ever be sacred in my memory.  The canoes—­great lumbering hollow trees—­are laden with good things; the rowers are in their places; the flag of England is hoisted at the stern of the Doctor’s canoe; the flag of America waves and rustles joyously above mine; and I cannot look at them without feeling a certain pride that the two Anglo-Saxon nations are represented this day on this great inland sea, in the face of wild nature and barbarism.

We are escorted to our boats by the great Arab merchants, by the admiring children of Unyamwezi, by the freemen of Zanzibar, by wondering Waguhha and Wajiji, by fierce Warundi, who are on this day quiet, even sorrowful, that the white men are going-"Whither?” they all ask.

At 8 A.M. we start, freely distributing our farewells as the Arabs and quidnuncs wave their hands.  On the part of one or two of them there was an attempt to say something sentimental and affecting, especially by the convicted sinner Mohammed bin Sali; but though outwardly I manifested no disapprobation of his words, or of the emphatic way in which he shook my hand, I was not sorry to see the last of him, after his treachery to Livingstone in 1869.  I was earnestly requested to convey to Unyanyembe “Mengi salaams” to everybody, but had I done so, as he evidently desired me to do, I would not have been surprised at being regarded by all as hopelessly imbecile.

We pushed off from the clayey bank at the foot of the market-place, while the land party, unencumbered with luggage, under the leadership of gigantic Asmani and Bombay, commenced their journey southward along the shores of the lake.  We had arranged to meet them at the mouth of every river to transport them across from bank to bank.

The Doctor being in Sayd bin Majid’s boat, which was a third or so shorter than the one under my command, took the lead, with the British flag, held aloft by a bamboo, streaming behind like a crimson meteor.  My boat-manned by Wajiji sailors, whom we had engaged to take the canoes back from Tongwe Cape to Ujiji Bunder—­ came astern, and had a much taller flagstaff, on which was hoisted the ever-beautiful Stars and Stripes.  Its extreme height drew from the Doctor—­whose patriotism and loyalty had been excited—­the remark that he would cut down the tallest palmyra for his flagstaff, as it was not fitting that the British flag should be so much lower than that of the United States.

Our soldiers were not a whit behind us in lightheartedness at the thought of going to Unyanyembe.  They struck up the exhilarating song of the Zanzibar boatmen, with the ecstatic chorus—­

Kinan de re re Kitunga,

rowing away like madmen, until they were compelled to rest from sheer exhaustion, while the perspiration exuded from the pores of their bodies in streams.  When refreshed, they bent back to their oars, raising the song of the Mrima—­