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THE NEW AFRICA 
panions, and remembering that the river had to be crossed, 
he slacked off till they ranged up alongside of him, and then 
they ran together. The boys told him to jump for it when they 
reached the water, and they would pull him through. With 
the shout still ringing in his ears, he made up his mind and 
jumped, with what result the reader knows. 
It was quite evident that to stop where we were meant that 
we should be attacked shortly, so we now agreed to go with 
the Mombokooshus, whose excitement was tremendous. They 
wanted to be off at once, and the old man, their leader, flour¬ 
ished his long metal pipe, ordering here, and swearing there, 
until we had to tell him to be quiet. 
We hastily sorted out the more important goods, and dis¬ 
carded everything superfluous and weighty, except ammunition, 
so as to reduce the packs to the number of our bearers, and 
then, each of ourselves taking what we found most valuable, we 
made a bonfire of the balance. Our books, and the leaves of the 
Nautical Almanac now out of date, were also thrown aside, and, 
lastly, our treasured meat-forcing machine, which was flung 
in pieces in the sand, so that the natives should have no 
use from it. Meanwhile, the old Mombokooshu, agitated by 
the shouts from some natives, who had crawled up nearer, 
through some bush higher up the river, telling him and our 
boys, if they would fly and leave the goods, that no harm would 
come to them, urged us to depart. But we wanted the burning 
goods to be consumed before we left, as an object lesson to the 
natives, and also had to perform the melancholy duty of shoot¬ 
ing the poor donkeys, who were now so far gone from ‘ fly-bite,’ 
that they could hardly stir. This done, I gave the order to 4 a 
twente, aroo tsamaya ’—‘ Up, let’s go ! ’ Each boy grasped his 
pack, and we were just starting, when a plaintive bleat from 
our little goat, Blanche, induced several boys to make a rush to 
pick her up. Chiki was the first to catch her, and set her 
over his load, where she hung contentedly for the rest of the 
march. We were obliged to make a detour from the known 
footpath along the Liana, as it appeared likely, from the 
