WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 21 
the hut; the sick man is obviously sicker than before. His face is an obscure 
yellow, he has ceased to vomit, he is no longer restless, he lies in a stupor, 
breathing stertorously. The black-bearded man smokes, and reads a tattered 
novelette, glancing from time to time uneasily at the one who lies so ill, but 
trying to still his anxiety by assuring himself “that the poor beggar has got 
to sleep at last.” The man with the red hair and pockmarked cheeks sings 
snatches of music-hall songs at intervals and drinks whisky and water, trying 
hard to keep up his courage. For he is in a cold-sweating dread of death by 
fever—a death which can come so quickly. A month ago there were four of 
them, all in riotous health, revelling in the excitements of exploring a new 
country, confident that they had found traces of gold, merrily slaughtering 
buffalo, eland, kudu and sable ; sometimes after elephant with the thought of the 
hundreds of pounds’ worth of ivory they might secure with a few lucky shots ; 
killing “hippo” in the river and collecting their great curved tusks for subsequent 
sale at a far-off trading station ; trafficking with the natives in the flesh of all 
the beasts they slew and getting in exchange the unwholesome native meal, 
bunches of plantains, calabashes of honey, red peppers, rice, sugar cane, fowls, 
eggs, and goat’s milk. They had not treated the natives badly, and the natives 
in a kind of way liked these rough pioneers who offered no violence beyond an 
occasional kick, who were successful in sport and consequently generous in 
meat distribution, and who gave them occasional “tots” of “ kachaso,” 1 and 
paid for the temporary allotment of native wives in pinches of gunpowder, 
handfuls of caps, yards of cloth, old blankets and clasp knives. Yes; a month 
ago they were having a very good time, they were not even hampered by the 
slight restraints over their natural instincts which might exist in Mashonaland. 
They had found obvious signs of payable gold—“an ounce to the ton if only 
machinery could be got up there for crushing the rock ”•—they would return to 
the south and float a company; meantime they had intended to see a little more 
of this bounteous land blessed with an abundant rainfall, a rich soil, a luxuriant 
vegetation, a friendly people, grand sport, and heaps of food ; and then, all at 
once, one of them after a bottle of whisky overnight and a drenching in a 
thunderstorm next day, complains of a bad pain in his back. A few hours 
afterwards he commences to vomit, passes black-water, turns bright yellow, 
falls into a stupor, and in two days is dead. “Was it the whisky, or the 
wetting, or neither? It could not be the whisky: good liquor was what was 
wanted to counteract this deadly climate; no, it could not be the whisky; on 
the contrary,” thought the man who turns these thoughts over musingly in his 
mind, “ he himself must take more whisky to keep his spirits up. When old 
Sampson was better and could be carried in a hammock, they would all 
make straight for the Lake and the steamers and so pass out of the country, 
perhaps returning to work the gold, perhaps not.” 
The heat of the afternoon increases. The man on the bed still snores, the 
woman still fans, Blackbeard has fallen asleep over his novelette and Redhead 
over his whisky and water. The silence of the village is suddenly broken by a 
sound of voices and the tramp of feet. Blackbeard wakes up, rubs his eyes 
and staggers out into the sunshine to greet a thin wiry European with bright 
eyes and a decided manner. “Oh . . . you are the Mission doctor, aren’t you? 
Come in—in here. He is pretty bad, poor chap, but I expect you will do him 
a lot of good.” . . . 
It is early evening. The two mining prospectors have left the hut, advised 
1 Fire-water—whisky. 
