THE EVIL EYE 343 



The next two days we spent tracking the herd back 

 to the valley in which the first four buffalo had given us 

 the slip. On the evening of the second day we got 

 caught in the heaviest thunderstorm I think I have ever 

 seen. Every dry watercourse was turned into a torrent, 

 which swept away stones and trees ; the water stood two 

 inches deep on the ground, along which the lightning 

 played continuously, while there was a never-ceasing 

 rattle of thunder. I feared every moment that one or 

 other of the rifles would be struck, and had them piled 

 against one tree, while we vainly endeavoured to shelter 

 ourselves under another. When the storm abated a 

 little, we waded back to camp, which we reached long 

 after dark, our teeth chattering, and our limbs so be- 

 numbed that we could hardly drag them along. After 

 getting into a change of clothes and drinking some 

 hot coffee, I had a long talk with my headmen over 

 what was to be done. It was now twenty-five days 

 since I had left Gondar, intending to return in fifteen ; 

 several of the men had fever, and all had been on the 

 lowest of rations for the last three days, w^hile I managed 

 to subsist — and so far keep well — on a small tin of potted 

 meat and a little bread. I doubted, however, whether 

 I could endure much more of this sort of work without 

 an attack of fever. The Abyssinians attributed all my 

 ill-luck to the evil eye, which some one had cast on me, 

 and declared that, try how I might, it was useless — I 

 could not break the spell : if I persisted, we should all 

 lose our lives from fever. It would have been waste 

 of time to argue with such dolts, so I did not stop to 

 point out to them that the "evil eye" was mainly the 



