264 
EAST AFRICA AND ITS BIG GAME. 
beyond our old camp at Maji-a-chumvi, and the last three men 
were nearly instantaneously killed. All the party were armed, 
and Ali Mahomed was carrying a Colts repeating-rifle with 
fifteen cartridges in it. We returned to Mombasa on Septem¬ 
ber 1st, after a very dry march, there being no water at Maungu, 
and little at other places. During this trip we shot some 350 
head of big game, which were all consumed by our men. 
Here the men expected to receive all the pay that was owing 
to them; but knowing what the result would be, we refused to 
pay over their wages, but consented to advance each porter ten 
rupees, and some of the steadier men more. The result, however, 
was not encouraging, as next morning, when we wanted some 
men to work, only six turned up, and these were not entirely 
sober. The rest of the caravan had a regular African debauch, 
and returned gradually as their ten rupees disappeared. Africans 
have only three ideas of pleasure, eating, drinking, and women. 
In this case most of the money went to a small Goanese shop 
which sold Hamburgh brandy. This fearful concoction is im¬ 
ported into East Africa by Messrs. Hansing & Co., of Zanzibar, 
and is sold at four and a half dollars per dozen. 
It was not until September 1 ith that we were ready to start 
again on our trip to the Tana river. I send you a short 
account of this expedition, because, with the exception of the 
brothers Denhardt, no European had ever ascended this river 
farther than thirty or forty miles. 
The Tana river rises around Mount Kenia, and after a south¬ 
easterly course flows into the sea about two degrees S. latitude. 
We found canoes could probably ascend for some three hundred 
miles during the rainy season. 
We reached Freretown at twelve o’clock, where we expected 
to find the caravan assembled, but it was 1.30 before a suffi¬ 
cient number of our men had arrived to make a start, and even 
then a large number of drunkards were left behind. We then 
marched on through thick plantations of cocoa-nuts, &c., until 
the evening of the 13th, when we crossed the Kalefi Creek, 
where we saw the surveying-boat, the Stork, about which the 
