RECOVERY OF THE LOST BOOTS AND RUPEES. 87 
unfortunately nearly all the potatoes had been lost 
on the way out and most of the onions had gone 
bad. H- took charge of this department, and 
proved a most efficient and industrious gardener. I 
went in for doctoring some of the invalids, and trying 
my hand as a cobbler, for our boots by this time were 
in a very bad state, and we had quite given up any 
hope of recovering those we had lost. Travellers might 
take warning from our experience, and remember it 
may be a bad thing to put all their hoots in one basket! 
I bought the half-dressed hide of a sheep, and was 
getting on capitally, having completed one pair of 
leather socks, which fitted fairly well, when, as a 
delightful surprise, our Askari Chandi and the three 
men we had despatched in search of the runaway 
arrived with the missing boots and rupees. They 
had followed the deserter right back to Mombasa 
before they caught him, and had also captured four 
other deserters, from whom they recovered two rifles 
and eleven rupees. These rascals were handed over 
to the Governor of Mombasa, who had them well 
flogged, and then sent the one who had had charge of 
our boots under a guard of two soldiers to point out 
the exact place where he had thrown down his load. 
One of our men came to sad grief soon after our arrival 
at Taveta, for the poor fellow fell into a pit of burning 
rubbish, and had nearly all the skin burnt off both 
legs; he bore the pain, which must have been intense, 
with singular fortitude, and though we dressed his 
injuries with vaseline and cotton-wool, a long time 
