TWO WOMEN DROWNED 



277 



to the foaming torrent. Maktubu, ever ready to lend a help- 

 ing hand, went to meet them at the most dangerous part, but 

 before they could reach him their strength failed them, they 

 let go the rope, and, in spite of every effort on the part of 

 Maktubu and others, they were swept away before our eyes. 



Heavy rain prevented our starting before nine o'clock on 

 the 19th, but it held up a little then and we set forth once more. 

 Ten men were still missing, but we dared not risk the lives of 

 the whole party by further delay. We pushed on in an easterly 



DEATH OF THE TWO BUKKENEJI WOMEN. 



direction, now through fresh green bush thickets, now over 

 flooded meadows, to the undulating base of the chain of hills 

 running parallel with the Kerio, and camped in the afternoon by 

 a little brook in a wood. I had been taken ill with rapidly 

 increasing fever at the beginning of the march and suffered 

 dreadfully all the way, so that I was scarcely sensible when I 

 at last got into camp. Three natives whom we had met had told 

 us that the kraal we were seeking belonged to a chief named 

 Yarra, and was the only one in the neighbourhood. 



