SEARCH FOR FALLS ON MAO KABI 65 



goats, and even their dogs. They had suffered, too, 

 a yet more terrible scourge, for wild beasts ravaged 

 the neighbourhood, and from the village where we 

 then stood seven women and ten children had been 

 carried off. 



We pitched our camp in the bush, and through 

 the hum of insect life, borne on the fitful gusts of the 

 night wind, we heard the dull boom of falling water 

 that told us we were nearing the object of our hopes. 



Next morning a two hours' march brought us to 

 our base. As we approached it our excitement rose, 

 for the path led across water-courses, mostly dry at 

 this season, except for deep pools connected by a mere 

 trickle, and in their beds were the tracks of all sorts 

 of beasts, — monkeys, bush-cow, leopard, lion, rhino- 

 ceros, elephant, hippopotamus, and giraffe, — and as we 

 crossed, baboon grunted from either side. The thick 

 grass, however, reduced the chance of sport to a mere 

 hazard. 



We were carried over those larger streams that 

 still contained a good deal of water on a black man's 

 shoulder, which we tried to sit with a simulation of 

 ease. This the bearer seldom permitted us to main- 

 tain, for he jerked us steadily backwards till it be- 

 came a question of knee-grip and endurance. M. 

 Bertaut saw and took pity, and lent me an enormous 

 Senegalais sergeant,^ whose gentleness and strength 

 robbed the passage of its horrors. His comrades 

 say of him that when a bull causes him annoyance he 

 has merely to remove it by the leg, and the animal 

 recognises the power behind and says nothing. M. 



1 Two months later this man was killed in an insm-rection of Senussi of 

 Ndelle against the French. 



E 



