THE WATCH, 



171 



oriental watch. They sang and shouted, and they 

 carefully fed the camp fire during early night, 

 when there is no danger ; but all slept like the 

 dead throu^^h the ' small hours,' the time always 

 chosen by the African freebooters, and indeed by 

 almost all savages, to make their unheroic on- 

 slaughts. Similarly, throughout our expedition 

 to the Lake Regions, the ' soldiers ' never dreamed 

 of any precaution whilst in dangerous regions. 

 As we approached the coast, however, sentinels 

 were carefully set, that all might be well which 

 ends well. 



At daybreak on February 9, accompanied by 

 a much reduced detachment, we resumed our 

 march : the poitrinaire Jemadar, who was crippled 

 by the moonlight and by the cold dew, resolved, 

 when thawed, to return with the rest of his com- 

 pany Chogwe-wards. An hour's hard walking 

 brought us to the foot of rugged Tongwe, the Great 

 Hill. Ascending the flank of the N. Eastern spur, 

 we found ourselves at 8 a.m., after five or six bad 

 miles, upon the chine of a little ridge, with sum- 

 mer facing the sea^ and a wintry wind blowing 

 from the deep and forested valley to landward. 

 Thence, pm^suing the rugged incline, after another 

 half-hour we entered the ' fort,' a crenellated, flat- 

 roofed, and whitewashed room, 14 feet square, sup- 



