FROM MONGTSE TO SSUMAO 



From here the true work of exploration might be said to begin. 

 Before us lay the unknown. Perhaps illusion sometimes colours 

 our impressions. Well, illusion let it be ! I believe in dreams, and 

 pity those whose sterile minds no impulse ever stirs. 



Amongst the latter might be classed our mafous ; they were no 

 dreamers. Yet, was it imagination that led them to take two 

 shining sparks in the thicket behind us for living panther's eyes? 

 We had to fire our guns to reassure them. These fellows began to 

 see that our journey meant business. On arrival at the camping- 

 ground one of the mules was missing, having been allowed to 

 straggle by the way. What was worse, it was one that carried 

 specie. After two hours' search it was led in ; but these early 

 troubles disheartened the makotou, who sat himself down and wept, 

 declaring that he could not do everything by himself We soothed 

 him with commendation, and he presently forgot his woes in the 

 consolation of his opium pipe. 



He would not perhaps have slept so soundly had he known what 

 awaited us on the next day — one of the hardest for man and beast 

 in the whole of this part of the undertaking. A week later we 

 could not have performed this stage, at least in one piece. It was 

 uphill all the way and fairly good going, but followed the crests 

 without deviation. I pitied our animals : the horses struggled 

 gamely, scrambling up the steepest bits, and every now and then 

 stopping abruptly to regain their wind. The march seemed 

 unending ; no sooner had we topped one summit than another rose 

 before us. Once the track led us through a wood, where we saw 

 some natives hunting a stag with boar-spears, a dog, and a horn like 

 a sea-conch. I marvelled at the agility with which they sprang over 

 the boulders. In the afternoon we passed from the valley of the 

 Red River into that of one of its tributaries. The hillsides here 



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