THE LOST BOX RECOVERED. 



257 



lack of unanimity however caused the measure to be 

 thrown out. A march was fixed for the next day, when 

 the bullock, on this occasion the scape-grace, broke its 

 tether and plunged into the bush : it was followed by 

 the Baloch and the porters, whose puny arrows, when 

 they alighted upon the beast's stern, only goaded it for- 

 wards, and at least threescore matchlock- balls were dis- 

 charged before one bullet found its billet in the fugitive. 

 The camp of course then demanded another holiday to 

 eat beef. 



The reader must not imagine that I am making a 

 " great cry," about a little matter. Four days are not 

 easily spent when snowed-up in a country inn, and that 

 is a feeble comparison for the halt in East Africa, where 

 outfit is leaking away, the valuable travelling-time is 

 perhaps drawing to a close, health is palpably failing, 

 and nothing but black faces made blacker still by 

 ill-humour and loud squabbles, meet the eye and 

 ear. Insignificant things they afterwards appear viewed 

 through the medium of memory, these petty annoyances 

 of travel ; yet at the moment they are severely felt, and 

 they must be resented accordingly. The African tra- 

 veller's fitness for the task of exploration depends more 

 upon his faculty of chafing under delays and kicking 

 against the pricks, than upon his power of displaying 

 the patience of a Griselda or a Job. 



On the 30th September, the last day of our detention 

 at the Jiwa, appeared a large caravan headed by Said 

 bin Mohammed of Mbuamaji, with K half an bin Khamis, 

 and several other Coast- Arabs. They brought news 

 from the sea-board, and, — wondrous good fortune ! — the 

 portmanteau containing books which the porter, profiting 

 by the confusion caused by the swarm of bees, had de- 

 posited in the long grass, at the place where I had 



vol. i. s. 



