40 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



and the usual howling mob of venomous pariah 

 dogs — yellow mongrels with ears pricked like 

 jackals. L. had a hard struggle to march that 

 day, as he had a touch of fever, but eventually 

 we forded the Inyagui and camped on the other 

 side. There are golden grains of hard-learned 

 wisdom in those last four words. " To camp on 

 the other side " is, in fact, one of the first and 

 most important things to learn in the alphabet 

 of African travel. Nature works with fevered 

 pulses in this continent, and once the Rubicon 

 has been crossed one can afford to smile at the 

 torrents of the night's storm. There was, I 

 remember, a rather curious contrivance in use 

 at the Inyagui to enable travellers to wend their 

 troubled ways when the river was in flood. Two 

 staunch trees, one on either bank, were con- 

 nected by a wire rope. From this was swung a 

 " cage " composed of timber and reeds, which 

 was hauled from side to side as required by 

 natives. It was rather a grotesque and un- 

 reliable sort of ferry, yet it served its purpose in 

 a crude and terrifying way. 



We were now well within the true borders of 

 the Mashona country. Kraals galore we passed 

 through, all teeming with life — men, women — 

 round-bellied " umfaans," mongrel dogs, noisy 

 goats, fleas and other insects of prey, all en- 

 veloped in a memorable matrix of filth and smell. 

 The most ardent admirer of the great " M'Shona " 

 or " M'Swina " race could scarcely accuse them 

 of being cleanly. They put stones in tree-forks 

 at dusk to appease evil spirits. They recognize 

 in some vague and nebulous way a Deity. By a 

 considerable stretch of the imagination they 

 might perhaps be termed "Godly," but not all 

 the powers of fiction in this world could suggest 



