I had left Richarn, and none remained of my people. The past appeared like a dream; the rushing sound of the train renewed ideas of civilization. Had I really come from the Nile Sources? It was no dream. A witness sat before me—a face still young, but bronzed like an Arab by years of exposure to a burning sun, haggard and worn with toil and sickness, and shaded with cares happily now past, the devoted companion of my pilgrimage, to whom I owed success and life—my wife.

I had received letters from England, that had been waiting at the British Consulate. The first I opened informed me that the Royal Geographical Society had awarded me the Victoria Gold Medal, at a time when they were unaware whether I was alive or dead, and when the success of my expedition was unknown. This appreciation of my exertions was the warmest welcome that I could have received on my first entrance into civilization after so many years of savagedom. It rendered the completion of the Nile Sources doubly grateful, as I had fulfilled the expectations that the Geographical Society had so generously expressed by the presentation of their medal BEFORE my task was done.

1

This was written about twenty years ago, and does not apply to the Khartoum of to-day. In 1869 The Khedive of Egypt despatched an expedition under Sir Samuel Baker to suppress slavery in the Soudan and Central Africa. To the success of that expedition, and to the efforts of Colonel (now General) Gordon, who succeeded to the command of the Soudan, was owing the suppression of the traffic in slaves. Within the last few weeks, under the stress of circumstances, General Gordon has been forced to promise the removal of this prohibition of slavery.—E. J. W.

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