326 A ROBBER PARTY. 



as the chief was a great man, and did not need the orna- 

 ments of my men, but we noticed that they were taken 

 back again. I divided the cloth among my men, and 

 pleased them a little by thus compensating for the loss 

 of the ox. I advised the chief, whose name we did not 

 learn, as he did not design to appear except under the 

 alias Matiamvo, to get cattle for his own use, and expressed 

 sorrow that I had none wherewith to enable him to make 

 a commencement. Rains prevented our proceeding 

 till Thursday morning, and then messengers appeared 

 to tell us that their chief had learned, that all the cloth 

 sent by him had not been presented ; that the copper 

 rings had been secreted by the persons ordered to restore 

 them to us, and that he had stripped the thievish emis- 

 saries of their property as a punishment. Our guides 

 thought these were only spies of a larger party, concealed 

 in the forest through which we were now about to pass. 

 We prepared for defence by marching in a compact body, 

 and allowing no one to straggle far behind the others. 

 "We marched through many miles of gloomy forest in 

 gloomier silence, but nothing disturbed us. We came to 

 a village, and found all the men absent, the guides thought 

 in the forest, with their countrymen. I was too ill to care 

 much whether we were attacked or not. Though a pouring 

 rain came on, as we were all anxious to get away out of 

 a bad neighbourhood, we proceeded. The thick atmos- 

 phere prevented my seeing the creeping plants in time to 

 avoid them ; so Pitsane, Mohorisi, and I, who alone were 

 mounted, were often caught ; and as there is no stopping 

 the oxen when the}- have the prospect of giving the rider 

 a tumble, we came frequently to the ground. In addition 

 to these mishaps, Sinbad went off at a plunging gallop, 

 the bridle broke, and I came down backwards on the crown 

 of my head. He gave me a kick on the thigh at the same 

 time. I felt none the worse for this rough treatment, 

 but would not recommend it to others as a palliative 

 in cases of fever ! This last attack of fever was so obstinate 

 that it reduced me almost to a skeleton. The blanket 

 which I used as a saddle on the back of the ox, being 

 frequently wet, remained so beneath me even in the hot 

 sun, and, aided by the heat of the ox, caused extensive 

 abrasion of the skin, which was continually healing and 

 getting sore again. To this inconvenience was now added 

 the chafing of my projecting bones on the hard bed. 



