ATTACKED BY NEGEOES. 
117 
opposite to where the worn-out and senseless young man lay. 
Shrieking with pain and rage_, the maddened and disappointed 
animal elevated his huge ears and strained his senses to their 
utmost_, but in vain ; and^ loth to leave the spot^ he lingered until 
driven off by several hunters hurrying after him to the relief of 
Carlo. A night^s rest produced opposite results on our hero and 
the elephant : the latter was found dead^ hut the young hunter^ 
full of the usual vigour of his age^ was again himself. 
Pursuing their journey^ and in the precincts of Akaba Shambyl, 
•it having been an unusually dry season_, the party suffered greatly 
from thirst,, and eight of their negro porters had died from that 
cause. Carlo^ his elder brother,, and the younger Poncet,, with five 
Arab servants,, in this extremity, with a mule and a few empty 
skins, pushed forward to supply the exhausted party with water 
from the river — although but some three miles distant, yet beyond 
the strength of the exhausted men to reach. After refreshing 
themselves, and when in the act of filling the vessels, several un- 
friendly Nouaers, hovering suspiciously around, suddenly dashed 
at them, and, hurling their clubs with vexatious precision, followed 
up their villanous attack with lances. A discharge of buckshot 
brought two of the offenders for an instant to the ground and 
wounded several others; the punished negroes determined on a 
retreat, and, seeing that pursuit was not attempted, they assisted 
their wounded to decamp as best they could, without further 
injury. No time was to be lost, as doubtless the beaten negroes 
would return in greater numbers ; therefore, with as much dispatch 
as might be, they that same night rejoined their drooping com- 
rades. Relieved by the small supply of water, but probably more 
so by the fact — now beyond a doubt — that they were so near to 
the river, the weary party with renewed vigour again set forth. 
