With Flashlight and Rifle 



The distress then was something terrible. In Pangant 

 alone a great many more than a thousand blacks had 

 succumbed ; the feeding of the numbers who streamed 

 there from all directions with rice (which had to be 

 imported from India) was very costly. Nowhere were 

 any means of nourishment to be bought, and rice formed, 



o 



therefore, the staple food for my camp. 



Still, before starting on my great journey into the 

 interior I wanted above all things to be thoroughly 

 informed as to the condition of the buffaloes, which had 

 been so glowingly described to me. On June 22nd I 

 left Pangani, crossing the southern river-bank to Mbueni, 

 with thirty loads of rice, two Muscat asses, a number 

 of pack-asses, seventy-eight carriers, and several private 

 soldiers, in all ninety-five men, and marched three and 

 a half hours along the sea-shore. Not far from the 

 town, and near my camping-place for the night, Uschongo, 

 some putrefied corpses betrayed the lamentable state of 

 things. Even the cocoa-palms had been all stripped of 

 their fans by locusts. 



I shall now transcribe almost literally the short 

 notes from my diary, which are well calculated to give 

 the reader an idea of this march : 



"June 24. Early morning start ; march of eight 

 hours. Over Great and Little Kipumbui to Ngnaia. 



"June 25. Along the sea-coast. Six-hour march. 



"June 26. March to Paramakara ; then to Java; 

 way lost. Everywhere we met with dead Mouma 

 palms, which had been tapped for palm-wine by the 



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