CHAPTER XIV 



September 9. — Down river through the freshly 

 burned country to our base camp. Here we found 

 Dolo and Company, together with our relay safari, all 

 right. They had backfired, and were quite safe. 

 Loaded them all up, and after an hour's delay went on. 

 For a short distance we enjoyed the good walking of 

 the burned country. The game was still there. I sup- 

 pose it had gone into the woods while the fire raged, and 

 now was enjoying charcoal as a diet — together with the 

 very roots of the grass. Then we struck higher hills, 

 deeper ravines, chaparral, forests, little open glades of 

 high grass. It was very pretty and intimate, but hard 

 travel, for we had to chop and twist and double and 

 turn to get on at all. However, we did get on, and at 

 noon emerged from that strip to the green open hills 

 again. Camped in the middle of a thicket; and found 

 ourselves just across the river from our camp of day 

 before yesterday. In the afternoon Cuninghame went 

 fishing (we have had plenty of fish ever since striking 

 the river), but I loafed. Assured our own meat by 

 killing an oribi, but the men had to fall back on jerky 

 because I missed a waterbuck. This, however, ended 

 my spell of bad shooting. Dolo reported that while 



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