48 PEACE: LION HUNTING 



of very light, open scrub intersected by waste 

 spaces. It was pleasant to have a good yarn 

 with another white man again, and especially with 

 Mafoota, an old African pioneer, with great 

 knowledge of the country and its peoples. Mafoota 

 (the native name comes more easily than the 

 English) told me that at the time when his camp 

 was farther up the river, he passed three years 

 without seeing a white face. From him I learnt 

 also that quarantine regulations would prevent 

 me taking my stock through either Rhodesia or 

 the Caprivi Sipra ; information that decided me 

 to strike west again and make a settled camp 

 somewhere for a month or so ; by which time I 

 judged the wet season ought to be over. 



After sending a few boys across to Livingstone 

 to bring back my mail and a few other necessaries, 

 we fixed our camp twenty-five miles west of the 

 Quandoo. No sooner was the camp fixed, than 

 the wet season started with fairly heavy rains, 

 and a chapter of accidents opened that gave us 

 rather a bad time. Both Joe and Charlie went 

 sick, and then I fell ill myself through foolishly 

 riding all day in the wet in search of some missing 

 stock (the boys having lost a lot of the oxen and 

 three donkeys) when I was already feverish. Joe 

 and Charlie soon got right, but my recovery was 

 a hard struggle, and it took me about seven weeks 

 to pull through. The most difficult part was 

 the effort to keep a grip on oneself mentally, and 

 so escape becoming delirious. I remember one 



