In the Heart of Africa 
162 
the first grey light of morning. Exhumatioriy not rescue, for 
what remained to be rescued was heartrendingly little. Very 
few of the luckless ones, of whom my carrier-leader Salim was 
one, showed any trace of life. All the rest, twenty in number, 
and nearly half my caravan, lay corpses in the snow. Frozen 
under a tropical sun! Faces horribly distorted by the death 
agony, fingers scraping deeply into the snow, so they lay! A 
terrible spectacle for us who had arrived too late to save them. 
“One thought alone possessed me—^Away! away! as far as 
ever possible from the abode of death! The loads had, of 
course, to be abandoned, amongst them my scientific collections 
and the whole of the valuable photographic material—the work 
of many weeks. Who would drag them along ? We ourselves 
were half-dead. We could only take the most absolutely 
necessary things with us. Arrived at the lower Karissimbi camp 
I collapsed. WTen I returned to consciousness two days later I 
found that my people, or at least the strongest of them, had 
so far recovered that we could turn our attention to the task 
of unburying the loads which had been left behind. By good 
fortune they were all regained, not a stick was lost.” 
This most regrettable episode offers a very striking example 
of the fatalism, and the lack of energy engendered thereby, in 
the negro during dangerous situations, where a rapid apprehension 
of the position and cool-headed independent action would save 
him. “ Amri ya mungu ” is the watchword with which he con¬ 
fronts all the arts of persuasion. “ Amri ya mungu ”—it is the 
divine will that we are to die, so let us die. One might imagine 
this to be truly pious resignation and subjection to the divine 
power, but that is not at all the case. The formula so used is 
purely a phrase heard from youth up and handed down from 
father to son, in which the stupid apathy of the negro evinces 
itself. That it would be possible to overcome this by an appro¬ 
priate method of treatment, by which I mean severity tempered 
with justice, is proved by the model behaviour and energetic 
conduct of the two Askari. Taken altogether, I could adduce 
many a fine instance of cool-headed and courageous action in 
