1 62 In the Heart of Africa 



the first grey light of morning. Exhumation, not rescue, for 

 what remained to be rescued was heartrendingly little. Very 

 few of the luckless ones, of whom my carrier-leader Salim was 

 one, showed any trace of life. All the rest, twenty in number, 

 and nearly half my caravan, lay corpses in the snow. Frozen 

 under a tropical sun ! Faces horribly distorted by the death 

 agony, fingers scraping deeply into the snow, so they lay ! A 

 terrible spectacle for us who had arrived too late to save them. 



" One thought alone possessed me — Away ! away ! as far as 

 ever possible from the abode of death! The loads had, of 

 course, to be abandoned, amongst them my scientific collections 

 and the whole of the valuable photographic material — the work 

 of many weeks. Who would drag them along ? We ourselves 

 were half-dead. We could only take the most absolutely 

 necessary things with us. Arrived at the lower Karissimbi camp 

 I collapsed. When I returned to consciousness two days later I 

 found that my people, or at least the strongest of them, had 

 so far recovered that we could turn our attention to the task 

 of unburying the loads which had been left behind. By good 

 fortune they were all regained, not a stick was lost." 



This most regrettable episode offers a very striking example 

 of the fatalism, and the lack of energy engendered thereby, in 

 the negro during dangerous situations, where a rapid apprehension 

 of the position and cool-headed independent action would save 

 him. " Amri ya mungu " is the watchword with which he con- 

 fronts all the arts of persuasion. " Amri ya mungu " — it is the 

 divine will that we are to die, so let us die. One might imagine 

 this to be truly pious resignation and subjection to the divine 

 power, but that is not at all the case. The formula so used is 

 purely a phrase heard from youth up and handed down from 

 father to son, in which the stupid apathy of the negro evinces 

 itself. That it would be possible to overcome this by an appro- 

 priate method of treatment, by which I mean severity tempered 

 with justice, is proved by the model behaviour and energetic 

 conduct of the two Askari. Taken altogether, I could adduce 

 many a fine instance of cool-headed and courageous action in 



