216 



THROUGH TURK ANA AND SUK 



Before we went to rest that night we had to do summary 

 justice on nineteen of our men who had stolen some 220 lb. of 

 the common stock of dhurra. Although we had only marched 

 for fourteen days since leaving Eeshiat, and eight rhinoceroses 

 with one zebra had been unexpectedly added to our stores of 

 food, not one of our men had a scrap of their rations left. 

 Eemembering the terrible physical strain upon the men, we 

 might have overlooked their exceeding their rations as they 

 had, but we could not condone a deliberate theft, and the 

 nineteen culprits each received thirty strokes, which most of 

 them took as a just punishment, without a word of com- 

 plaint. 



"When we got under way the next morning, we found that 

 two Burkeneji women, the elder of whom had two charming 

 little daughters, aged seven and nine, meant to accompany us 

 on our journey. 



We pressed on along the shore of the lake, reaching on the 

 evening of May 31 our old camping-place by the water, having 

 done the 235 miles with our overladen caravan in sixteen days 

 of ninety marching hours, whereas the same distance had taken 

 twenty-eight days going up. The fears with which we had 

 started southward had not, most fortunately, been realised ; 

 only three of our men had succumbed to the difficulties of the 

 way, and not one of the donkej^s, which were under the special 

 care of the Somal, had fallen. So far fate had been kind to us, 

 and, full of fresh hope, we halted at the spot whence, eighty- 

 five days before, we had begun the march northward oppressed 

 with considerable anxiety. We really were rather better off 

 than we had been then, as we had food with us for several 

 days, and, according to Lembasso, we could reach the inhabited 

 district of Turkana without any special difficulty. Thus 

 reassured about the immediate future, the dreary nature of our 

 surroundings did not much trouble us. On the contrar}^ we 



