On December 2, 1856—fourteen long years ago!—we bade adieu to the foul harbour of Bombay the Beautiful, with but a single sigh. The warm-hearted Mr Lumsden saw us on board, wrung our hands with friendly vigour, and bade us go in and win—deserve success if we could not command it. No phantom of the future cast a shadow upon our sunny path as we set out, determined either to do or die. I find my journal brimful of enthusiasm. ‘Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Home, man feels once more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood. Excitement lends unwonted vigour to the muscles, and the sudden sense of freedom adds a cubit to the mental stature. Afresh dawns the morn of life; again the bright world is beautiful to the eye, and the glorious face of nature gladdens the soul. A journey, in fact, appeals to Imagination, to Memory, to Hope,—the three sister Graces of our moral being.’
The 18½ days spent in sailing 2400 direct miles ‘far o’er the red equator’ were short for our occupations. I read all that had been written upon the subject of Zanzibar, from Messer Marco Miglione to the learned Vincent, who always suspected either the existence or the place of the absurd ‘Maravi Lake.’ We rubbed up our acquaintance with the sextant and the altitude and azimuth; and we registered barometer and thermometer, so as to have a base for observations ashore. The nearest reference point of known pressure to Zanzibar was then Aden, distant above 1000 miles. Under all circumstances the distance was undesirable; moreover, violent squalls between the Persian Gulf and Cape Guardafui sometimes depress the mercury half an inch. I shall again refer to this point in Chapter V.
‘Father Frushard’ was genial, as usual, and under his command every soul was happy. We greatly enjoyed the order, coolness, and cleanliness of a ship of war, after the confusion, the caloric, and the manifold impurities of a Red Sea passenger-packet. Here were no rattling, heaving throbs, making you tremulous as a jelly in the Caniculi; no coal-smoke, intrusive as on a German Eisen-bahn; no thirst-maddened (cock-) ‘roaches’ exploring the entrance to man’s stomach; no cabins rank with sulphuretted hydrogen; no decks whereon pallid and jaundiced passengers shake convulsed shoulders as they rush to and from the bulwarks and the taffrail. Also no ‘starboard and larboard exclusiveness’; of flirting abigails tending portly and majestic dames, who look crooked beyond the salvation-pale of their own very small ‘set’; no peppery civilians rubbing skirts against heedless ‘griffins’; nor fair lips maltreating the ‘hapless letter H’; nor officers singing lullabies to their etiolated enfants terribles, and lacking but one little dispensation of nature—concerning which Humboldt treats—to become the best of wet-nurses. The ‘Elphinstone’ belonged not to the category ‘Shippe of Helle,’ one of whose squadron I have described in an old voyage to a certain ‘Unhappy Valley.’ We would willingly have prolonged our cruise with the jovial captain, and with the good fellows and gallant gentlemen in the gun-room, over many and many a league of waves.
