Guinea-fowl 



starting for the lowlands. There was in this 

 truck a large tarpaulin, which was usually 

 employed in covering up merchandise of sorts. 

 I have, I think, mentioned previously that the 

 engines on this line burnt wood for fuel. Now, 

 wood throws up a great number of sparks when 

 steam is turned on to the furnaces, with the 

 result that live embers fall around in the most 

 promiscuous fashion. My boys found this out 

 to their cost, for their bare skins were soon 

 tickled up in many places by these particles of 

 ashes. The antics that followed beat description. 

 I happened to look out of the carriage in which 

 I was a passenger, but could see nothing of my 

 followers. I noticed, however, that the tarpaulin 

 was stretched over one end of the truck. At 

 the next stopping-place I went back to see how 

 they were getting on, and found them huddled 

 up like herrings in a barrel under this shelter. 

 Large holes had been burnt in many places in 

 the cover, and it was small wonder that they 

 had used what protection there was to hand. 

 The heat in my carriage was great enough to be 

 uncomfortable, but what must it have been 

 under that tarpaulin ? At the eighty-mile peg 

 I got on the engine with the driver. He had an 

 old twelve-bore fowling-piece with him in the 

 cab. The train at no time travelled at more 

 than twenty miles an hour, and I had noticed a 



lot of guinea-fowl running along the track in 



105 



