TPIE HURRIED MAECH. 



271 



active aid : they seized the fellow, took from him his 

 wire and his nine cloths, appropriated four, and left 

 me five wherewith to engage another porter. The de- 

 serter was of course dismissed, but the severity of the 

 treatment did not prevent three desertions on the next 

 day. 



The 10th October ushered in an ugly march. Emerg- 

 ing betimes from the glaring white and red plains of 

 Kanyenye, dotted with fields, villages, and calabashes, 

 we unloaded in a thin jungle of mimosa and grass- 

 bunches, near sundry pools, then almost dried up, but 

 still surrounded by a straggling growth of ehamaerops 

 and verdurous thorns. The bush gave every opportu- 

 nity to the porters, who had dispersed in the halt, to 

 desert with impunity. In our hurried morning tramp, 

 want of carriage had caused considerable confusion, and 

 at 2 p.m., when again the word " load " was given for 

 a tirikeza, everything seemed to go wrong. Said bin 

 Salim and the Jemadar hurried forwards, leaving me to 

 manage the departure with Kidogo, who, whilst my 

 companion lay under a calabash almost unable to move, 

 substituted for his strong Mnyamwezi ass a wretched 

 animal unable to bear the lightest load. The Baloch 

 Belok was asked to carry our only gourd full of water; 

 he pleaded sickness as an excuse. And, when the rear 

 of the caravan was about to march, Kidogo, who alone 

 knew the way, hastened on so fast that he left us to 

 wander through a labyrinth of elephants' tracks, hedged 

 in by thorns and brambly trees, which did considerable 

 damage to clothes and cutis. 



Having at length found the way, we advanced over a 

 broad, open, and grassy plain, striped with southwards- 

 trending sandy water-courses of easy ascent and descent, 

 and lined with a green aromatic vegetation, in which the 



