A DESERTED TOWN 
83 
appeared on ahead, hoping it was your fire ; but when I got there, 
I found they were only natives, who laughed at me, and said 
that to-morrow they would come and kill me and take my gun, 
and they would not tell me if they had seen you or not. So 
again I went to my hut and made it stronger against the lions, 
who came again in the night, and struck at the hut, and whis¬ 
pered like before, and I was nearly mad, and cried all night. 
Next day I just sat still thinking until you came. Then I felt 
as if my heart was opened wide, and the sunshine streamed into 
it and made me warm and glad, as I am now.’ 
The now deserted town of Linyanti lies opposite the Sunta 
mouth on the North Chobe bank, with a large island in the 
reeds dividing the river into two channels. 
A remarkable incident, to which I have only obtained the 
solution since accurately studying the trajectory curve of missiles 
fired from rifles, occurred in the neighbourhood of the Sunta. 
Being some miles away from the column, I fired a signal shot to 
gather from the answering fire the exact whereabouts of the 
expedition. Not to waste the shot, I fired at a pigeon sitting on 
a tree at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and cut off its 
head. At the time Hammar and Jan were sitting side by side on 
a fallen stump about two miles off'. Suddenly they became 
aware of a whirring noise, like that of an angular stone hurtling 
through the air, increasing momentarily in intensity, and pop, 
the bullet dropped between them in the sand, whence they dug 
it up. On reaching them over half an hour later, they related 
the incident to me, which I accepted with more than the usual 
grain of salt to make it go down. However, Hammar assures 
me again in the presence of others that the facts related are 
perfectly correct, and so I record them. 
Along the banks of the river the natives, taking advantage of 
the annual rise of the water where it overflows its banks, con¬ 
struct long rows of impenetrable wooden fences, along which 
they drive such fish as may have happened to follow the over¬ 
flow into a cul-de-sac , formed for the purpose of capturing these 
finny additions to their somewhat meagre diet. We were told 
