These were difficulties for me also to surmount
in some manner not yet intelligible. How
was I to instil courage into my followers T or
sustain it, to obtain the assistance of the Arabs
to enable me to make a fair beginning, and afterwards
to purchase or make canoes?
“ I suppose, Tippu-Tib,” I said, “ having offered
the other white man your assistance, you would
have no objections to offer it to me for the same
sum?”
“ I don’t know about that,” he replied, with
a smile. “ I have not many people with me now.
Many are at Imbarri, others are trading in Ma-
nyema.”
“How many men have you with you?”
“ Perhaps three hundred— or say two hundred
and fifty.”
“ That number would be a grand escort, amply
sufficient, if well managed, to ensure perfect pro-
teption.”
“ Yes, united with your party, it would be a
Very strong force, but how would it be when
I returned alone? The natives would say, seeing
only my own little force, ‘These people have
been fighting— half of them are killed, because
they have no ivory with them; let us finish
them!’ I know, my friend, these savages very
well, and I tell you that that would be their
way of thinking.”
“But, my friend,” said I, “ think how it would
[°Tubanda^] 1 ASK TIPPU-TIB T0 JOIN ME- I25
be with me, with all the continent before me,
and only protected by tny little band!”
“ Ah, yes! if you Wasungu” (white men) “are
desirous of throwing away your lives, it is no
reason we Arabs should. We travel little by
little to get ivory and slaves, and are years
about it—it is now nine years since I left Zanzibar—
but you white men only look for rivers
and lakes and mountains, and you spend your
lives for no reason, and to no purpose. Look
at that old man who died in Bisa! What did
he seek year after year, until he became so old
that he could not travel? ‘He had no money,
for he never gave any of us anything, he bought
no ivory or slaves, yet he travelled farther than
any of us, and for what?”
“ I know I have no right to expect you to
risk your life for me. I only wish you to accompany
me sixty days’ journey, then leave me
to myself. If sixty days’ journey is too far,
half that distance will do ; all I am anxious for
is my people. You know thè Wangwana are
easily swayed by fear, but if they hear that Tippu-
Tib has joined me, and is about to accompany
me, every man will have a lion’s courage.”
“Well, I will think of it to-night, and hold a
shauri with my relatives and principal people,
and to-morrow night we will have another talk.”
The next evening, at about eight o’clock,
Hamed bin Mohammed, or Tippu-Tib, appèared