A CAPTURE 123 



towards his own end, Lewis and Rensberg going 

 down with him as far as the junction at Kirrico. 



Our next move was down the river some miles 

 to a place which we called Buffalo Camp, because 

 a herd of buffalo, and later on some zebra, rushed 

 amongst our horses and mules which were grazing 

 and stampeded them for several miles. (Talking 

 of zebras, I wonder whether there is much in the 

 theory of protective colouring ; the zebra himself, 

 with the striking marks given by nature, being a 

 great contrast to the tame and artificially bred 

 mule, the latter, of drab colour, with the dark 

 bands down the shoulders and along the back, is 

 peculiarly well protected as far as appearance 

 goes.) 



Old Siccumberro, with a considerable retinue, 

 called in one afternoon on his way up the Quito. 

 He had heard news that a nephew had suddenly 

 died whilst high up on the river on a hunting trip, 

 and suspected, as these people always do, foul 

 play by poison. Siccumberro announced that he 

 intended, if he found out that there had been foul 

 play, to bring the culprit down to me for trial. Of 

 course I agreed, though the jurisdiction of the 

 court might be considered somewhat irregular. 

 The trip was to take him thirty days up the river, 

 " unless hunger drove him back," and as a help 

 towards preventing this latter catastrophe, we 

 gave the old boy some spare meat and bones when 

 he left. 



After a time our camp was moved back again 



