428 RHINOCEROS OF THE LADO [ch. xiv 



had amply earned. All the meat did not get into camp 

 until after dark — one of the sailors, unfortunately, falling 

 out of a tree and breaking his neck on the way in — and 

 it was picturesque to see the rows of big antelope — 

 hartebeest, kob, water buck — stretched in front of the 

 flaring fires, and the dark faces of the waiting negroes, 

 each deputed by some particular group of gun-bearers, 

 porters, or sailors to bring back its share. 



Next morning we embarked, and steamed and drifted 

 down the Nile ; ourselves, our men, our belongings, and 

 the spoils of the chase all huddled together under the 

 torrid sun. Two or three times we grounded on sand- 

 bars, but no damage was done, and in twenty-six hours 

 we reached Nimule. We were no longer in healthy 

 East Africa. Kermit and I had been in robust health 

 throughout the time we were in Uganda and the Lado ; 

 but all the other white men of the party had suffered 

 more or less from dysentery, fever, and sun-prostration 

 while in the Lado ; some of the gun-bearers had been 

 down with fever, one of them dying while we were in 

 Uganda ; and four of the porters who had marched from 

 Koba to Nimule had died of dysentery — they were 

 burying one when we arrived. 



At Nimule we were, as usual, greeted with hospitable 

 heartiness by the English officials, as well as by two or 

 three elephant hunters. One of the latter, three days 

 before, had been charged by an unwounded bull elephant. 

 He fired both barrels into it as it came on, but it 

 charged home, knocked him down, killed his gun-bearer, 

 and made its escape into the forest. In the forlorn 

 little graveyard at the station were the graves of two 

 white men who had been killed by elephants. One of 

 them, named Stoney, had been caught by a wounded 

 bull, which stamped the life out of him and then liter- 



