78 



FROM THE COAST TO 



KILIMANJARO 



those of beasts of prey. Their only weapons were bows and 

 arrows. 



A little later I brought our marketing to an end, and re- 

 turned to camp in pouring rain. Arrived there, the first 

 thing T had to do was to send after a group of four of our 

 chained criminals, who had made off with their loads containing 

 our stock of rice ; then the poscho had to be given out for four 

 days to each man, consisting of a so-called schuha or upande 

 of merikani. We now also discovered that a man who had 

 been taken ill with fever in the morning was missing. The 

 men I sent to seek him soon found him and his stick, but 

 no load, near a swamp not far off; he had evidently taken 

 a wrong turn in the delirium of fever, for the next morning he 

 was gone again, and this time he could not be found. 



The country we passed through on the next stage was 

 called nyika by the natives — that is to say, it was an unin- 

 habited, barren, waterless, bushy steppe. The glare from the 

 red laterite soil was terrible, and the dust was fearfully deep. 

 The thorny acacias were almost bare of leaves, the patches of 

 coarse grass were few and far between ; the euphorbia alone 

 seemed to nourish and to be in its element. There were many 

 pitfalls, from nine and a half to thirteen feet deep, often several 

 in succession, so carefully concealed that the greatest caution 

 was needed to avoid them. These pitfalls and the footprints of 

 wild beasts proved that there was plenty of big game in the 

 neighbourhood, but we saw none. I noticed, however, several 

 gallinaceous birds, and I went after some of them into the bush 

 with my gun. An incident happened now which brought 

 forcibly before my mind the fact that I was in Africa, for just 

 as T was going to pick up a guinea-fowl I had shot, and which 

 had fallen among some bushes, out came a fine leopard, striding 

 rapidly along. Unfortunately I was not quick enough in 

 pointing my weapon, and I missed the beast with both barrels. 



