58 
THE KILIMA-XJ ABO EXPEDITION. 
some meagre busli afforded, and lay there during some 
minutes, vainly tr}dng to moisten my dried lips with 
my parched tongue, and hoping that with the approach 
of night and its dewy coolness I might overcome this 
raging thirst. Then the little lithe lizards would come 
and look at me with their heads on one side, and their 
bright eyes scanning me half-mockingly; an irate ant 
would nip my hot hand, which I had abandoned as if it 
no longer belonged to me, and carelessly placed on an 
unconsidered ant-hill, till at length, weary of my un¬ 
restful repose, I would stagger to my feet, and limp 
on for a few minutes in agony, as you always do when 
you have given blistered feet a brief rest and then 
commence walking again. 
I will spare you a further recital of these very 
ordinary, everyday African sufferings, so interesting 
to me to ponder over now that I am writing about 
them in England, where thirst is almost desirable 
from the many pleasant ways there are of quench¬ 
ing it. I will suppose that I have stumbled over 
a rocky path in the waning daylight, toiled on the 
last dreary miles of the journey under a rising 
moon, and at length found myself amid a strange 
thicket of thorny trees., and weird euphorbias at the 
base of the hill of Maungu. In the camping-place 
where most caravans stop, I see a small fire burning, 
a man sitting, and a man lying down. The former is 
one of my natural history collectors and the other my 
Indian servant, Virapan, who has fainted. I question 
the collector, a man called Athmani, and he tells me 
the water lies in a cup-shaped basin at the summit of 
the hill (which is nearly 5000 feet high), and that his 
companion and helpmate, Mabruki, has gone to get 
some. Fancy when you have walked thirty-two miles 
