44 COLLAPSE AND RETURN part i 



Somali but about six, engage another lot of the latter, and 

 practically start the whole thing anew. 



On the 1 2th of February Harris and I crossed the Tana 

 with a few Somali and all the Zanzibari, to commence the 

 march back to Mombasa ; Mackinnon and Benett-Stanford left 

 next day with the camels and Somali to return to Lamu via 

 Witu. 



In spite of the regrets with which I said farewell to Benett- 

 Stanford and Mackinnon, I was very glad to leave that 

 camp. I had spent seven weary weeks in it. The memory 

 of the first four was so nauseous that I never left a place with 

 such pleasure as I did that fever-haunted camp in the swamps 

 and forest of Vuju. Both Harris and I were glad, moreover, to 

 escape from the crowd of Somali, and to have to do with 

 Zanzibari instead. We found these so much more useful, 

 reliable, and obedient. 



We resolved to cross the deserts to the south of the Tana 

 and to strike a tributary of the Sabaki marked on the maps 

 as the Ndeo. We met some Galla, and tried to persuade 

 them to go as guides. They refused, for they said there was 

 no such river. This information I proved to be correct 

 during my return march from the later expedition. The 

 Ndeo is lost in the deserts long before it approaches the 

 Sabaki ; it was, therefore, very lucky that we gave up the 

 attempt to reach it. 



We did not do so, however, without another try, and I 

 went to Borabini to engage guides at the Galla settlement 

 there. I started overland, but was taken ill and had to hire 

 a canoe. I reached Borabini prostrated by another attack 

 of malarial dysentery. The two missionaries were away, but 

 fortunately for me Mr. W. W. A. Fitzgerald, a specialist on 

 tropical agriculture, on the staff of the British East Africa 

 Company, had arrived there just before me. He nursed me 

 through a rather serious illness, delaying his departure for 

 Witu till Harris could come down. Thanks to their careful 

 nursing I shook off the attack. We rested at Borabini, until 

 I was strong enough to sit on a donkey, when we continued 

 our march to the coast. We reached this at Marareni, a 

 village occupied during only part of the year by the collec- 

 tors of the " orchilla-weed," which abounds there. Thence we 



