THE NATIVES BEG ME TO PERFORM MIRACLES. 
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to our friends and started on our return journey to 
Rusia. Going back was much easier than coming, since 
we had made a path for ourselves to some extent; but the 
return was especially easy for me, as I let the boys go 
ahead now and push the bushes away, whereas previously 
I had been obliged to lead and urge the men to follow. 
After two days’ fast marching we arrived at Gumba. 
The natives were utterly dumfounded on seeing us 
again; many of them dropped on their knees and tried 
to take my feet in their hands as they implored me to 
work some charms for their benefit. They begged me 
to do something that would drive away the birds from 
their cornfields, and also to keep the Murtu from attack- 
ing them. It was difficult to escape from doing some- 
thing to impress the natives without confessing to weak- 
ness, so I gave one of them a piece of paper, telling him 
IT hoped it would benefit him. Whereupon I was imme- 
diately besieged by all the assembled crowd shouting 
for prescriptions. They wished to give me sheep for 
the bits of paper, but I did not accept their offers. And 
so it was at Kére and all the villages we passed on 
the way to Rusia. The natives showed no end of aston- 
ishment, and would have done anything in their power 
for us. 
At last, on August 5, we joined Dodson and the rest of 
the caravan at our old camp by the lake. I found several 
of the boys in the camp ill with fever, but Dodson was in 
good condition, as he had been taking exercise every day. 
He told me he had made an excursion in the boat far 
around the northern end of the lake, and had satisfied 
himself that there was no river there except the Nianam. 
He had amused himself in the evenings by setting a spring 
gun for hyenas, and had bagged seven hyenas and five 
foxes in this way. 
