A LION HUNT 63 



By three o'clock I felt I had done quite enough, so decided 

 to pitch camp for the night in the bush. Again all that night 

 there were very heavy rains which cleared by six o'clock 

 in the morning, when we once more resumed the march. 

 A mile from Mutumbiu we crossed the River Simanka which 

 we found much swollen by the rains, so that I was wet up to 

 the waist as I rode across. The chilly water had the effect 

 of bringing on an ague fit and my sickness returned, more 

 severe than before. I had just strength enough to struggle 

 on into Mutumbiu and then I collapsed. Jose had my bed 

 made in the house of the kind old chief, whom we have met 

 before, and here he nursed me all that night and the next 

 day till the following midnight, when the alarming symptoms 

 of blackwater fever appeared. Up to then I had been 

 treating myself for ordinary fever with large doses of quinine, 

 but now that was useless, and, in consequence of the serious 

 nature of my illness, Jose left me in charge of John the cook, 

 and rode off to Ibi next morning posthaste for a doctor. 

 Unfortunately the doctor had been called away to Wase, 

 so Jose, after leaving word of my plight, rode back the same 

 night with what medicine and invalid food he could find. 

 He arrived the next morning to find that the crisis had passed, 

 though I was not yet out of the wood, and still in a very 

 prostrate condition. I regard this as a very splendid per- 

 formance on Jose's part. For, it must be remembered that 

 he had been two nights and a day without sleep, in constant 

 attendance, before he accomplished without a pause the ride 

 to Ibi and back, a distance of fifty miles, with a river 800 

 yards wide to cross and recross. The next day Gosling 

 arrived havins; heard the news that I was ill on his return to 



