Potosi 



of porters to convey it further, so I helped myself. 

 I bought a pail full of peas for forty beads or about 

 twopence. I bribed a native to show me the way 

 with some more beads, although he afterwards 

 told me he wanted clothes and was not contented 

 until my headman assured him that the former could 

 purchase the latter, which was really a brain wave. 

 Thirty of my porters went sick the next morning, 

 which coincided suspiciously with our approach to 

 the difficult and mountainous country. Eventually 

 all arrived in camp at Potosi, after climbing three 

 huge mountains and wading across two big rivers, 

 so that I do not think there could have been much 

 wrong with them. 



At last I had arrived at a part of the world worth 

 seeing. Crossing not only the Equator, but also 

 the Anglo-German boundary, with an armed force, 

 over great mountains, with a cold wind blowing 

 strong enough to lift my heavy helmet off my 

 head, was quite a novelty, and a violent change 

 from the country I had been accustomed to whilst 

 marching through Uganda. Although I did seven 

 hours that day over these mountains I never once 

 suffered from the heat. The scenery was magnifi- 

 cent, and I had to stop constantly, much to the 

 irritation of my impatient orderly, to admire the 

 views. Serried masses of mountains, cleft with the 

 deepest chasms, due to the acute climatic disin- 

 tegration, presented themselves in different aspects 

 at each step, while from an unexpected quarter 

 every now and then a river would wind its way from 



^53 



