INTRODUCTION. XXV1l

to give here my opinions about the future of the province, or

the way in which I think that the Central African Question

should be solved; but there is no doubt at all that if wise

measures are set on foot, Emin’s desire for a “safe road to

the coast” may soon be realised, and a way opened up from

the Equatorial Province to some port, either Mombasa, or, as

‘Mr. Ravenstein has suggested, to Kismayu. Supposing for a

' moment that the latter port were chosen, the transport ques-

tion would be greatly simplified. It will be noticed in one of Emin’s letters (see p. 390) that he had already introduced camels into his province from Turkan, and there is every reason

to suppose that the whole of the country between Liren,

.one of Emin Pasha’s stations, and Kismayu, might be traversed

by camel-caravans at a rate of some twenty-five or thirty miles

a day. ‘The distance as the crow flies from one point to the

other is about 650 miles, no great distance surely ; and as the people who inhabit the lower districts, the Masai, are really

akin to the Latuka and Lango, with whom, as may be seen from Emin’s letters, he has no difficulty at all in dealing, it is

only reasonable to suppose that, with care and patience, a trade

route could be opened up with very little expenditure of either

_ time or money. Indeed, some such arrangement must be come

to, unless it is the intention of this country to relinquish all

participation in the commercial activity which is daily receiving

ereater impetus in Eastern Africa, to abandon to anarchy

districts which would well repay any present expenditure, and

to relinquish to others the fruits of the labour of many a

British explorer, and of a generation of diplomatic and com-

mercial effort on the east coast of Africa.

Two portraits of Hmin Pasha are given in this volume. The

one was taken in Germany in 1875, and appears in the Ger- man edition; the other (the frontispiece) is from a photograph taken by the French Consul at Kharttm in 1882, and has

been specially prepared for this book. |

: Knowing the trials with which my friend has had to contend,