XVII.] 



BOMBAY'S INGENUITY. 



225 



To avoid the necessity of employing extra men to assist fur- 

 ther in carrying our stores, as on the road from Kasenge, I dis- 

 tributed a load of beads, as a month's rations in advance, and 

 opened and issued a box of cartridges. 



What the men did with their ammunition it was difficult to 

 understand. At Bagamoyo I served out a hundred and thirty 

 rounds of ball-cartridge, and at Unyanyembe twenty-five per 

 gun, besides blank ; yet now many had not even a single car- 

 tridge. They seemed to think themselves remarkably clever 

 in getting rid of them, and came with a grin on their faces, say- 

 ing, " Hapana, bwana (there are none, master)." 



May, 

 1874. 



A '■ UANDA." 



By this reduction of loads, I thought it would be possible to 

 get along without further trouble ; but Bombay exercised an 

 almost fiendish ingenuity in making work, and upsetting my 

 plans. Out of loads which I had broken up and distributed 

 among the askari, and of shot, wads, and cartridges belonging 

 to my own guns which I had put into the lighter loads, in order 

 to equalize the weight of all, he made extra ones ; and when I 

 ordered the start in the morning, -he reported that four loads 

 were unprovided with carriers ! 



Re-arranging matters delayed our moving, and our next camp 

 was not reached until nearly two o'clock, after a heavy march 

 under a most powerful sun. The thermometer, in partial shade 

 under a tree, registered 131°. It was all the more trying, from 

 our having to walk through stinking, fetid mud at some marshy 

 spots. 



At noon we forded the Lugumba, forty yards wide and mid- 

 thigh deep, running two and a half knots, with the water glit- 



