ANOTHEE LIFE LOST. 
213 
horn, used for grappling the herbage when the water was too deep 
for the pole. Way was made at the rate of three miles an hour. 
We soon came up to a detachment of our men, who had been sent 
on with the cattle ; they had successfully swum the stream Haugau, 
and the men and horses were now wading, hut the donkeys were 
still swimming, and a man supported the head of each above the 
water. 
We had navigated westward this channel, about the distance of 
a mile, when we got into the bend of a larger and stronger current 
joining the central channel. Their united waters flowed north, 
and formed a stream from twenty to thirty yards wide and from 
fifteen to eighteen feet deep. 
Night had closed in when the deserted kraal, where we were to 
bivouac, was reached ; a stagnant fetid ditch was first waded through, 
then marsh for a short distance. Selecting a tookul for ourselves, 
unfortunately neither wind nor water-tight, I there placed my ex- 
hausted wife, proceeded to shoot for a dinuer, and speedily bagged 
a few ducks. 
The remainder of our party did not all arrive until midnight, 
and in a wretched plight. The accidents had been many — one poor 
negro porter was drowned, two donkeys also, clothing lost, and that 
saved was saturated ; our fold-up bedsteads with blankets had been 
immersed. We tore down from the tookuls some straw on which to 
repose ; it was damp and mouldy. Truly our lodging was on the 
cold ground. 
September IStli . — Buchit and Ponceks men started at an early 
hour for the Atwat territory and villages, there to purchase food 
for themselves, and some for us, on arrival. The rations ran short, 
and of grain we were almost destitute. The promised day^s rest 
