A PRISONER 175 



We reached the Rufigit river after some days, 

 crossing it not far from Mohoro. Though it is 

 a fine stream, flowing strongly and fully 400 yards 

 across, I felt no great enthusiasm for it, realising 

 that it was another considerable obstacle between 

 me and our columns. " Here will come the big 

 fight/' says my German guardian, and later on 

 he tells me in confidence, " Here the English 

 will have the bush war." That night we 

 camped near the river bank at the German 

 post, and the German in charge informed us 

 that there were two bad man-eaters about, and 

 that he had lost several porters lately from these 

 lions. 



As a prisoner I take accordingly an unusual 

 interest in the strength of the walls of the little 

 outside hut I am put into for the night, and con- 

 sole myself with the thought that should anything 

 happen during the night, the askaris on guard will 

 doubtless be taken first. 



Kilwa was our next stop, and in the meanwhile 

 I had been transferred to the charge of a wretched 

 little creature of a German N.C.O., who I noticed, 

 with misgiving, was very thin. His heart was 

 bad, and so he rode the whole of the next twelve 

 days to Liwale in a machela (hammock or chair 

 fixed on poles and carried by natives). To me it 

 seemed a long twelve days' walk, for on the 

 journey I began to get weak with fever and 

 dysentery. Liwale, formerly an ordinary police 

 station, was then used as a prison for English 



