CHAP. XIII.] 
MISERY AT SHOOA MORTJ. 
3 75 
starving. The women of the party were soon hard at 
work grinding, as many of the necessary stones had 
been found among the ruins. 
Fortunately there were three varieties of plants grow¬ 
ing wild in great profusion, that, when boiled, were a 
good substitute for spinach; thus we were rich in vege¬ 
tables, although without a morsel of fat or animal food. 
Our dinner consisted daily of a mess of black porridge 
of bitter mouldy flour, that no English pig would con¬ 
descend to notice, and a large dish of spinach. “ Better 
a dinner of herbs where love is,” &c. often occurred to 
me; but I am not sure that I was quite of that opinion 
after a fortnight’s grazing upon spinach. 
Tea and coffee were things of the past, the very idea 
of wdiich made our mouths water; but I found a 
species of wild thyme growing in the jungles, and 
this, when boiled, formed a tolerable substitute for tea; 
sometimes our men procured a little wild honey, which, 
added to the thyme tea, we considered a great luxury. 
This wretched fare, in our exhausted state from 
fever and general effects of climate, so completely 
disabled us, that for nearly two months my wife lay 
helpless on one angarep, and I upon the other ; neither 
of us could walk. The hut was like all in Kamrasi’s 
country, a perfect forest of thick poles to support the 
roof (I counted thirty-two) ; thus, although it was 
tolerably large, there was but little accommodation. 
These poles we now found very convenient, as we were 
so weak, that we could not rise from bed without 
hauling by one of the supports. 
We were very nearly dead, and our amusement was a 
childish conversation about the good things in England, 
and my idea of perfect happiness was an English beef¬ 
steak and a bottle of pale ale ; for such a luxury I 
would most willingly have sold my birthright at that 
hungry moment. We were perfect skeletons ; and it 
was annoying to see how we suffered upon the bad 
fare, while our men apparently throve. There were 
plenty of wild red peppers, and the men seemed to 
