Guinea-fowl 
starting for the lowlands. There was in this 
truck a large tarpaulin, which was usually 
employed in covering up merchandise of sorts. 
I have, I think, mentioned previously that the 
engines on this line burnt wood for fuel. Now, 
wood throws up a great number of sparks when 
steam is turned on to the furnaces, with the 
result that live embers fall around in the most 
promiscuous fashion. My boys found this out 
to their cost, for their bare skins were soon 
tickled up in many places by these particles of 
ashes. The antics that followed beat description. 
I happened to look out of the carriage in which 
I was a passenger, but could see nothing of my 
followers. I noticed, however, that the tarpaulin 
was stretched over one end of the truck. At 
the next stopping-place I went back to see how 
they were getting on, and found them huddled 
up like herrings in a barrel under this shelter. 
Large holes had been burnt in many places in 
the cover, and it was small wonder that they 
had used what protection there was to hand. 
The heat in my carriage was great enough to be 
uncomfortable, but what must it have been 
under that tarpaulin? At the eighty-mile peg 
I got on the engine with the driver. He had an 
old twelve-bore fowling-piece with him in the 
cab. The train at no time travelled at more 
than twenty miles an hour, and I had noticed a 
lot of guinea-fowl running along the track in 
105 
