174 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
as bad prospects of being able to do so during 
that month as in the preceding. 
A circumstance, too, took place in the early 
part of December, which tended materially to 
render my situation more unpleasant, not to say 
alarming, than even the former state of suspense 
and anxiety could possibly have done ; this was 
a fire which broke out in one of the huts occu- 
pied by the men, and must have inevitably con- 
sumed the whole camp and baggage, were it not 
for the timely exertions of the men and the pro- 
vidential existence of a calm, which had only 
succeeded a strong breeze a few minutes before. 
From the precautions which had been always 
taken to prevent such an accident, I was the 
more astonished at any thing of this kind oc- 
curring, and from the impossibility of ascertain- 
ing by what means the hut took fire, the men 
who occupied it being all out, I began to suspect 
that some evil-disposed person had done it ; this 
however was only surmise, unsupported by any 
evidence whatever : but what made it the more 
suspicious was the position of the hut, which 
w^as a long distance from the cooking-place, and 
the nearest to our store. Two days, however, had 
only elapsed when it again took fire in the same 
way, and was entirely consumed, but as the wind 
was then blowing strongly from the east, the 
store, wiiich was in that direction, again provi- 
