RIDING THE PLAINS. 195 



A bright idea struck her. She too went over 

 and had a drink. After that I, personally, went 

 to sleep. But in the morning I found Captain 

 D. staring-eyed and strung nearly to madness, 

 trying feverishly to calculate how seven dogs 

 drinking on an average of three hours apiece 

 could have finished by morning. When Harold 

 Hill innocently asked if he had slept well, the 

 captain threw the remaining but now extinct 

 firebrand at him. 



One of the safari boys, a big Baganda, had 

 twisted his foot a little, and it had swelled up 

 considerably. In the morning he came to have 

 it attended to. The obvious treatment was very 

 hot water and rest ; but it would never do to 

 tell him so. The recommendation of so simple a 

 remedy would lose me his faith. So I gave him 

 a little dab of tick ointment wrapped in a leaf. 



" This," said I, " is most wonderful medicine ; 

 but it is also most dangerous. If you were to 

 rub it on your foot or your hand or any part of 

 you, that part would drop off. But if you wash 

 the part in very hot water continuously for a 

 half hour, and then put on the medicine, it is 

 good, and will cure you very soon." I am sure 

 I do not know what they put in tick ointment ; 

 nor, for the purpose, did it greatly matter. 



