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The time was now approaching when I should be obliged to leave Taveita and return to the coast.
My six months on Kilima-njaro were coming to an end, and the funds for the expedition also. Unless more money were granted me I should have to discharge my porters, pay their wages, wind up my affairs, and return to England, for living in Central Africa is no more possible without money or money's worth than it is elsewhere. Nevertheless, I could not bear to think I was quitting the country, and felt so hopeful and convinced that help in some shape or form would await me in Zanzibar, and that in a few weeks I should be back in Taveita with renewed zeal for my work, that I did not like to abandon my comfortable and well-ordered settlement to the wild beasts and white ants, especially as the ground it was built on was my own, purchased from the natives of Taveita. Therefore, after a little deliberation, finding, moreover, that I had many goods and implements of husbandry which I could neither carry to the coast, for want of porters, nor bring myself to throw away; and disliking also to abandon my goats, fowls, ducks, pigeons, and tame ostriches, I finally decided to leave four men in charge of the settlement, who should await my return during three months, and if I did not then arrive, pack up as many of the things as they could carry, and accompany one of the Swahili caravans returning to the coast.