How I Found Livingstone

very few, I believe, ever coupled the words 'New York Herald' with a search after "Doctor Livingstone." It was not my fault, was it?

Ah, me! what hard work it is to start an expedition alone! What with hurrying through the baking heat of the fierce relentless sun from shop to shop, strengthening myself with far-reaching and enduring patience far the haggling contest with the livid-faced Hindi, summoning courage and wit to brow-beat the villainous Goanese, and match the foxy Banyan, talking volumes throughout the day, correcting estimates, making up accounts, superintending the delivery of purchased articles, measuring and weighing them, to see that everything was of full measure and weight, overseeing the white men Farquhar and Shaw, who were busy on donkey saddles, sails, tents, and boats for the Expedition, I felt, when the day was over, as though limbs and brain well deserved their rest. Such labours were mine unremittingly for a month.

Having bartered drafts on Mr. James Gordon Bennett to the amount of several thousand dollars for cloth, beads, wire, donkeys, and a thousand necessaries, having advanced pay to the white men, and black escort of the Expedition, having fretted Capt. Webb and his family more than enough with the din of preparation, and filled his house with my goods, there was nothing further to do but to leave my formal adieus with the Europeans, and thank the Sultan and those gentlemen who had assisted me, before embarking for Bagamoyo.

The day before my departure from Zanzibar the American Consul, having just habited himself in his black coat, and taking with him an extra black hat, in order to be in state apparel, proceeded with me to the Sultan's palace. The prince had been generous to me; he had presented me with an Arab horse, had furnished me with letters of introduction to his agents, his chief men, and representatives in the interior, and in many other ways had shown himself well disposed towards me.

The palace is a large, roomy, lofty, square house close to the fort, built of coral, and plastered thickly with lime mortar. In appearance it is half Arabic and half Italian. The shutters are Venetian blinds painted a vivid green, and presenting a striking contrast to the whitewashed walls. Before the great, lofty, wide door were ranged in two crescents several Baluch and Persian mercenaries, armed with curved swords and targes of rhinoceros hide. Their dress consisted of a muddy-white cotton shirt, reaching to the ancles, girdled with a leather belt thickly studded with silver bosses.

As we came in sight a signal was passed to some person inside the entrance. When within twenty yards of the door, the Sultan, who was standing waiting, came down the steps, and, passing through the ranks, advanced toward us, with his right hand stretched out, and a genial smile of welcome on his face. On our side we raised our hats, and shook hands with him, after which, doing according as he bade us, we passed forward, and arrived on the highest step near the entrance door. He pointed forward; we bowed and arrived at the foot of an unpainted and narrow staircase to turn once more to the Sultan. The Consul, I perceived, was ascending sideways, a mode of progression which I saw was intended for a compromise with decency and dignity. At the top of the stairs we waited, with our faces towards the up-coming Prince. Again we were waved magnanimously forward, for before us was the reception-hall and throne-room. I noticed, as I marched forward to the furthest end, that the room was high, and painted in the Arabic style, that the carpet was thick and of Persian fabric, that the furniture consisted of a dozen gilt chairs and a chandelier,

We were seated; Ludha Damji, the Banyan collector of customs, a venerable-looking old man, with a shrewd intelligent face, sat on the right of the Sultan; next to him was the great Mohammedan merchant Tarya Topan who had come to be present at the interview, not only because he was one of the councillors of His Highness, but because he also took a lively interest in this American Expedition. Opposite to Ludha sat Capt. Webb, and next to him I was seated, opposite Tarya Topan. The Sultan sat in a gilt chair between the Americans and the councillors. Johari the dragoman stood humbly before the Sultan, expectant and ready to interpret what we had to communicate to the Prince.

The Sultan, so far as dress goes, might be taken for a Mingrelian gentleman, excepting, indeed, for the turban, whose ample folds in alternate colours of red, yellow, brown, and white, encircled his head. His long robe was of dark cloth, cinctured round the waist with his rich sword-belt, from which was suspended a gold-hilted scimitar, encased in a scabbard also enriched with gold: His legs and feet were bare, and had a ponderous look about them, since he suffered from that strange curse of Zanzibar-elephantiasis. His feet were slipped into a pair of watta (Arabic for slippers), with thick soles and a strong leathern band over the instep. His light complexion and his correct features, which are intelligent and regular, bespeak the Arab patrician. They indicate, however, nothing except his high descent and blood; no traits of character are visible unless there is just a trace of amiability, and perfect contentment with himself and all around.

Such is Prince, or Seyd Burghash, Sultan of Zanzibar and Pemba, and the East coast of Africa, from Somali Land to the Mozambique, as he appeared to me.

Coffee was served in cups supported by golden finjans, also some cocoa-nut milk, and rich sweet sherbet.

The conversation began with the question addressed to the Consul.

"Are you well?"

Consul.-"Yes, thank you. How is His Highness?"

Highness.-"Quite well!"

Highness to me.-"Are you well?"

Answer.-"Quite well, thanks!"

The Consul now introduces business; and questions about my travels follow from His Highness-

"How do you like Persia?"

"Have you seen Kerbela, Bagdad, Masr, Stamboul?"

"Have the Turks many soldiers?"

"How many has Persia?"

"Is Persia fertile?"

"How do you like Zanzibar?"

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.

We bowed ourselves out of his presence in much the same manner that we had bowed ourselves in, he accompanying us to the great entrance door.

Mr. Goodhue of Salem, an American merchant long resident in Zanzibar, presented me, as I gave him my adieu, with a blooded bay horse, imported from the Cape of Good Hope, and worth, at least at Zanzibar, $500.

Feb. 4.-By the 4th of February, twenty-eight days from the date of my arrival at Zanzibar, the organization and equipment of the "'New York Herald' Expedition" was complete; tents and saddles had been manufactured, boats and sails were ready. The donkeys brayed, and the horses neighed impatiently for the road.

Etiquette demanded that I should once more present my card to the European and American Consuls at Zanzibar, and the word "farewell" was said to everybody.

On the fifth day, four dhows were anchored before the American Consulate. Into one were lifted the two horses, into two others the donkeys, into the fourth, the largest, the black escort, and bulky moneys of the Expedition.

A little before noon we set sail. The American flag, a present to the Expedition by that kind-hearted lady, Mrs. Webb, was raised to the mast-head; the Consul, his lady, and exuberant little children, Mary and Charley, were on the housetop waving the starry banner, hats, and handkerchiefs, a token of farewell to me and mine. Happy people, and good! may their course and ours be prosperous, and may God's blessing rest on us all!

CHAPTER IV. - LIFE AT BAGAMOYO.

The isle of Zanzibar with its groves of cocoa-nut, mango, clove, and cinnamon, and its sentinel islets of Chumbi and French, with its whitewashed city and jack-fruit odor, with its harbor and ships that tread the deep, faded slowly from view, and looking westward, the African continent rose, a similar bank of green verdure to that which had just receded till it was a mere sinuous line above the horizon, looming in a northerly direction to the sublimity of a mountain chain. The distance across from Zanzibar to Bagamoyo may be about twenty-five miles, yet it took the dull and lazy dhows ten hours before they dropped anchor on the top of the coral reef plainly visible a few feet below the surface of the water, within a hundred yards of the beach.

The newly-enlisted soldiers, fond of noise and excitement, discharged repeated salvos by way of a salute to the mixed crowd of Arabs, Banyans, and Wasawahili, who stood on the beach to receive the Musungu (white man), which they did with a general stare and a chorus of "Yambo, bana?" (how are you, master?)

In our own land the meeting with a large crowd is rather a tedious operation, as our independent citizens insist on an interlacing of fingers, and a vigorous shaking thereof before their pride is satisfied, and the peaceful manifestation endorsed; but on this beach, well lined with spectators, a response of "Yambo, bana!" sufficed, except with one who of all there was acknowledged the greatest, and who, claiming, like all great men, individual attention, came...