CHAP. XI.] 
MISERY. 
325 
heart, and the black women rubbed her feet, to endea¬ 
vour to restore animation. At length the litter came, 
and after changing her clothes, she was carried mourn¬ 
fully forward as a corpse. Constantly we had to halt 
and support her head, as a painful rattling in the 
throat betokened suffocation. At length we reached 
a village, and halted for the night. 
I laid her carefully in a miserable hut, and watched 
beside her. I opened her clenched teeth with a small 
wooden wedge, and inserted a wet rag, upon which I 
. dropped water to moisten her tongue, which was dry 
as fur. The unfeeling brutes that composed the native 
escort were yelling and dancing as though all were 
well; and I ordered their chief at once to return with 
them to Kamrasi, as I would travel with them no 
longer. At first they refused to return; until at 
length I vowed that I would fire into them should 
they accompany us on the following morning. Day 
broke, and it was a relief to have got rid of the brutal 
escort. They had departed, and I had now my own 
men, and the guides supplied by Kamrasi. 
There was nothing to eat in this spot. My wife 
had never stirred since she fell by the coup de soldi , 
and merely respired about five times in a minute. 
It was impossible to remain ; the people would have 
starved. She was laid gently upon her litter, and we 
started forward on our funeral course. I was ill and 
broken-hearted, and I followed by her side through 
the long day’s march over wild park-lands and streams, 
with thick forest and deep marshy bottoms; over un¬ 
dulating hills, and through valleys of tall papyrus 
rushes, which, as we brushed through them on our 
melancholy way, waved over the litter like the black 
plumes of a hearse. We halted at a village, and again 
the night was passed in watching. I was wet, and 
coated with mud from the swampy marsh, and shivered 
with ague; but the cold within was greater than all. 
No change had taken place; she had never moved. 
I had plenty of fat, and I made four balls of about 
