192 
TEAYELS IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 
August — Living on eleplianLs flesh. The negroes will not 
bring grain into camp^ so we fared very badly. Petherick shot some 
guinea-fowl this morning, so they will prove an agreeable change. 
August 2^th . — Deradau retured from the Gog. One day^s march 
east of us he had seen Afar, with the whole of his available men, 
fighting a tribe for the right of pasturage in a plentiful district. 
He had lost twenty men, and as many more had been wounded ; 
forty head of cattle had been seized : so he could not come to us, 
but he promised that when the fight was over he would do so; 
Deradau assuring him that if he aided us he should receive a bar 
of copper as long as his lance. Much grumbling amongst our 
people : they hunger for grain, and it is within their grasp ; but 
obeying the strict injunctions of Petherick not to cut away an ear 
of it, they refrain from doing so. Mussaad, with a party of men, 
proceeded to a village at the eastern extremity of the lagoon, to 
endeavour to bring the negroes to reason — either to barter grain, 
which, if they would not, must be taken, or to remove us without 
delay. The negroes fled at his approach, leaving the women and 
children. One stripling youth alone remaining, to him Mussaad 
explained the purport of his visit, unless grain was brought, which 
would be paid for, and canoes provided to remove us, we would 
take up our abode in their village until the waters of the lagoon 
went down, and we could walk across, and that we should live on 
their corn-fields during our stay. Mussaad then returned with his 
party. In the afternoon many young girls and women came into 
camp, carrying baskets of grain, for which they received beads in 
exchange, and left highly delighted, promising more grain the next 
day ; saying also that the canoes would be brought, they returned 
to the village. 
