DEPAETURE FROM ADAEL. 
239 
November \Zth . — At last the preparations were declared com- 
plete^ and at noon we were to proceed. Poncet’s agent and fifty of 
his men will accompany us to the Neangara^ where a fresh relay of 
porters may be liired^ and the Kytch will be conducted hack by 
Ibrahim. 
At three p.m., the agent still unable^ as he said^ to starts we de- 
termined to do so ; leaving the cattle under an escort of twenty 
negroes to follow in the morning. Our way led us through the corn- 
fields,, from which we did not emerge until six p.m. ; and, pitching 
our tent under a fine tree, near a village close by, we encamped 
for the night. One hour after our arrival, two shots at a distance 
indicated some of our stragglers to have lost their way in the dark- 
ness. The reports having been answered, the men — four Shaygyehs 
— in a fright, soon arrived. They had been threatened by a band of 
aborigines, under cover of the night and corn ; and by their firing 
they scared them oflP. The Shaygyehs, being new hands, were a 
laughingstock for the older birds, and all the sympathy they re- 
ceived was ridicule, and an admonition for lagging behind. 
November \4ith. — Poncet’s men not arriving, we started at 8.50 
without them, through a few dourra and duchn or millet-fields ; now 
and then the top of a hut appeared in sight. The path led into an 
open wood, gradually becoming thicker, with grass overtopping the 
men^s heads. At a deserted kraal we made a short halt to rest 
the porters, and at noon arrived in a broad densely vegetated valley, 
containing apparently dead water, the greater part overgrown with 
reeds. The men crossed, wading breast-deep ; and our punt having 
been inadvertently taken across with a few men, we awaited its 
return. The man accompanying the porters reported the desertion 
of twenty-six of their number immediately the water had been 
