28 THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 



three waterbuck, fifteen kongoni, twelve zebra, one 

 dik-dik, and some impalla, and heard Hon and hyena. 

 Game birds, however, wxre in swarms. At every step 

 I flushed grouse, quail, guinea fowl, or pigeons. Killed 

 a kongoni with ones hot off hand at 247 yards, and re- 

 turned to find Cuninghame ready for business. 



We then tackled the donkey question. Our method 

 was as follows: Cuninghame and half a dozen huskies 

 hitched a donkey to the end of a long rope the other 

 end of which I, across the river, held. Then they 

 lifted that reluctant donkey bodily and launched him 

 in. I tried to guide him to the only possible landing- 

 place fifty yards or so downstream. This was easy 

 enough with the two mules; I merely held tight, let 

 them swim, and the current swung them around. Not 

 so the donkeys! They naturally swim very low, the 

 least thing puts them under, then they get panicky, they 

 try to turn back, they try to swim upstream; in short, 

 they do everything they should not do. Result : about 

 25 per cent, went across by schedule, the rest had to be 

 pulled, hauled, slacked off, grabbed, and yanked out 

 bodily. Some just plain sank, and them we pulled in 

 hand over hand as fast as we could haul them under 

 water — in the hope of getting them over before they 

 drowned. Succeeded, but some were pretty groggy. 

 One came revolving like a spinner, over and over. Each 

 animal required individual treatment at the line, and 

 after two experiments with the best of the men we 



