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..