THE BUSH ON FIBE. 
285 
was too small for tlie party assembled ; so all forming a circle^ we 
stamped and beat down the burning bush for some distance around. 
Our sufferings were great : no water was to be procured ; but our 
hearts were full of gratitude that all so mercifully had been spared . 
The negroes watched intently for any game that might seek this 
refuge, only to find death in another form. One of our boys caught 
a grey partridge emerging from the fire half suffocated, the beak 
and legs of which were yellow. 
In less than an hour resumed the march, over the still smoulder- 
ing herbage, causing many of the unshod to utter a cry of pain ; 
but this they declared they could better bear than the intolerable 
thirst, which we had no means of assuaging had we longer remained 
on the halt. An hour^s march brought us to the vicinity of two 
high hills, so sharply outlined that in the distance we had taken 
them for bare primitive rock, but approaching nearer, with the aid 
of glasses we discovered they were thickly covered with trees, the 
rock only here and there visible. Encamped in the village of 
Argatili, named after its chief, in the country called Aractora, 
subject to Neangara. The inhabitants fled on cur approach. The 
huts were of the same description as those recently passed, but the 
stockade was badly formed and out of repair. At sunset Argatili, 
the chief, and several natives visited us, and apologizing, said he 
had been occupied at the fire with the male population, and in their 
absence, at our approach the women had fled ; but that now, gain- 
ing confidence, they would return to their homes. 
January \7th . — During the night heard the noise of flowing 
water ; at an early hour in the morning left our quarters. The 
people had not returned to the village. After passing two or three 
hamlets, reached the bank of a beautiful and swift-flowing river 
