MISFOETUNE DOGS OUR HEELS 



269 



supported life with the greatest difficulty for weeks ; many- 

 had succumbed to their privations, and all were terribly pulled 

 down. Buoyed up with the hope that when we got to Suk we 

 should find plenty of food, they had struggled bravely on, and 

 here, at the very threshold of the promised land, we were face 

 to face with the fact that it too contained nothing for the 

 support of a caravan. 



The day was passed in an earnest discussion as to what we 

 should do. The idea was even mooted of simply plundering 

 our way through to Nyemps, but that would have been to close 

 the district altogether to the little caravan, which had, as we 

 knew, gone to Ngamatak, and we soon gave up that wild 

 scheme. Finally it was decided to send a contingent of men 

 southward to make inquiries as to how things were there, 

 whilst we ourselves should try to open relations with the cattle- 

 breeding Suk living on the Kerio. As to how we were to live 

 in the interval we had not the slightest idea, and the men who 

 had gone out to seek for wild berries, &c., came back empty- 

 handed. The next morning sixty men, under the care of two 

 Somal, set off southward, and we remained in camp in dreary 

 inaction, waiting for what fate should have in store for us. 



The continued misfortune with which our heels had lately 

 been dogged had, for the moment, quite crushed us, and we 

 did not even attempt to hunt, for we remembered our previous 

 experiences on the Trrawell, and felt sure we should find no 

 game. What our men lived on during this time of waiting is 

 a mystery to us, but they certainly had a good bit of dhurra 

 in the camp, although we had strictly forbidden them to take 

 any from the fields. The natives, however, made no complaints 

 to us on that score. 



Before I continue my narrative I must give my readers a 

 short account of what we learnt about the Suk, in whose 

 country we now found ourselves. 



