334 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



of these had a hind leg broken, and after about an 

 hour's chase through the swamp, we ran it in and 

 despatched it with assegais. The other wounded 

 one regained the herd ; so that I killed three, all 

 ewes. Owen still very ill ; could not eat, and com- 

 plained of great pain in the head. 



January loth. — As I feared, yesterday's work 

 with the lechwes brought on an attack of fever ; nor 

 is it to be wondered at. I was at least six hours in 

 the marsh, sometimes crawling on my hands and 

 knees through black, stinking; mud, festerino; beneath 

 the rays of a tropical summer's sun, and the rest of 

 the time wading up to my knees in mud and water ; 

 but, as we had nothing to eat but Kafir corn, and 

 there was very little game about here, I was obliged 

 to go after these lechwes in the swamp. Owen very 

 ill ; could neither sleep nor eat. I gave him a bottle 

 of Warburg's fever tincture. 



January iith. — Down again with a very sharp 

 attack of fever ; fearful pains in the head. Yesterday 

 evening I bathed in cold water, which perhaps had 

 something to do with it. My Basuto boy was also 

 down. We were now in a pretty predicament — all 

 down with fever of a very virulent form, and in the 

 depths of a starving country. Eight wretched little 

 Kafir fowls, about the size of a bantam, and just 

 mere skin and bone, anci a little Kafir corn and bad 

 water, was absolutely all we had to eat anci cirink ; 

 and if we had not got sufficiently well to have moved 

 out of this accursed pestilential spot before our 

 slender allowance was finished, it would have been a 

 poor look-out indeed. Taking a straight line as the 

 crow flies, we were more than four hundred miles 

 from Inyati, the farthest trading outpost and 

 missionary station in the Matabele country, which 



