542 Major Alfred St. Hill Gibbons [March 15, 



lost a popular and energetic colleague, but were cut off from our 

 main supplies, which he was bringing forward when seized with 

 dysentery. In consequence, during the last twelve months of our 

 travels, we had to exist on somewhat primitive lines, while all 

 necessary comforts were rotting at Zumbo. Yet in parting with my 

 officers I was able to do so with the consciousness that our close 

 associations had been unmarred by a single unpleasantness or differ- 

 ence, and that each had borne his share of work conscientiously and 

 energetically. 



My journey to Nanakandundu was made with a flotilla of native 

 canoes. From here it was my intention to follow the Zambesi on 

 foot, with a view to making the long-delayed discovery of the sources 

 of this most useful and beautiful river. In anticipation of the possible 

 difficulty of engaging porters to follow this route, I obtained five 

 donkeys, through the good offices of Major Coryndon. While my 

 small equipment was distributed among the canoes, the donkeys were 

 driven along the banks. 



At Nanakandundu, known locally as Nyakatoro, no boys could be 

 induced to accompany me into the almost depopulated country through 

 which I wished to travel. Many were willing to travel the trade 

 route along the watershed to Katanga, so I had perforce to load up 

 my five donkeys, and, with the four east-coast natives who had been 

 with me throughout, commenced a somewhat tedious journey. 



On the Congo-Zambesi watershed the first rains commence 

 towards the end of September, while south of the Kabompo no appre- 

 ciable amount of rain falls till Christmas. I have watched the river 

 rise several feet at Sesheke long before the appearance of the first 

 shower. 



Thus, in early October, when the donkeys were set in motion, the 

 wet season was already on us, and in some ways the journey was more 

 difficult with these four-legged beasts of burden than it might have 

 been with their two-legged cousins. Tbe former, if considerately 

 treated, always do their best ; the latter sometimes do not. Still, 

 where innumerable small tributaries flow through spongy, boggy 

 swamps, the porter is perhaps preferable. At all events, after being 

 perpetually employed for four or five weeks in bridging streams, 

 corduroying bogs, and cutting away the banks of rivulets to render 

 them fordable by the donkeys, I began to think so. But the crisis 

 came when one day, while skirting the dense line of tangled forest 

 which rose from the bed of a Zambesi tributary, the sudden cracking 

 of branches and splashing of water told us that an elephant had been 

 rudely disturbed, and had made away across the rivulet. We were 

 but a couple of hundred yards from the source of the stream, so I 

 hurried round with the intention of taking the spoor. One donkey 

 — a habitual wanderer — I ordered to be tied to a small tree. Desirous 

 of more scope, he tugged at his reim and shook the tree. In an 

 instant a loud buzzing was heard. The boys bolted for all they were 

 worth, and myriads of enraged bees almost obscured the unhappy 



