38 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



and I had to shoulder rifles and drive the donkeys. 

 Clo Clo proceeded at the rate of about a mile an 

 hour, and that night we had to pitch camp at 

 Hope's Farm — only about five miles from Salis- 

 bury. The next day I returned to town, ex- 

 changed Clo Clo for Clo Clo II, bought a few 

 necessary odds and ends and a bottle of " dop," 

 and at length, after scouring Salisbury, secured 

 a smart little Angoni named Julius, who said he 

 was prepared to share our lot at 10s. per month. 



The next morning we started from Hope's 

 Farm, having destroyed the wooden pack-saddles 

 and used them for firewood. They were most 

 useless things, and for the rest of the long journey 

 we resorted to balancing the loads, a matter of 

 very considerable difficulty. We generally com- 

 menced to pack as soon as it was light, and it 

 always took at least half-an-hour to make the 

 loads " sit " properly. Often and often one 

 donkey would barge into another before we had 

 gone a couple of hundred yards. Over would 

 come the pack, and we would gaze in dismay 

 at a bundle of cartridges, cooking-pots, and 

 precious tins of meat rolling down a deep ravine 

 or bouncing along to a river. It was indeed 

 heart-breaking. 



The morning we left Hope's Farm we had a 

 slight adventure with a mamba. Taffy, Ginger 

 and Tinker, in their madness, rushed in on the 

 deadly reptile, but I managed to blow his head 

 off with a charge of shot before any damage was 

 done to the dogs. Early in the afternoon we 

 stood on the southern ridge of the Chisawasha 

 Valley, and gazed across to where the purple 

 hills of Abercorn stood as sentinels in the azure 

 dome of the sky. Below us the red-brick build- 

 ings of the Mission Station, surrounded by 



