OUR FIRST HUNTING EXPEDITION 



that warm climate, it becomes, unless aerated, flat 

 and unpalatable. 



During our long hot march to this spot of en- 

 chantment, we saw something in the grass ahead 

 of us on the farther bank of one of the numerous 

 little streams we had to cross during the latter end 

 of the day. We could not even with our glasses 

 make out what it could be. At last our boys 

 called out in Swahili, " A dead man ". My husband 

 and his orderly, Saidi, went to look, and judging by 

 the way the former walked round the body with 

 his handkerchief up to his nose, I was glad I had 

 not followed. My husband said it was evidently 

 the body of a black man, torn to pieces by some 

 animal. The strange part about it was, that he had 

 a white leg with black spots upon it, only just be- 

 ginning to decompose, whereas his face was already 

 dried up. He had on an anklet and wristlet of 

 beads, but nothing else. Baruku and Saidi told 

 me the man had died from " sun and cold," evi- 

 dently exposure. They do not like crossing the 

 plains alone, so perhaps, being overcome, his com- 

 panions had calmly left him to his fate. That 

 evening, owing to my husband's bad heel, we did 

 not wander forth to see what we could find, but 

 we saw from our tent, on the farther bank, some 

 impala, such pretty red and yellow-ochre beasts. 

 My husband seized his gun, but as so often hap- 

 pens, the buck disappeared at once in the thick 



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