These Letters
Eventually Reached Home, But Not The Specimens.
The rains were so heavy that the whole country was now flooded,
but we pushed on to the nullah by relays, and pitched on its left
bank.
In the confusion of the march, however, we lost many more
porters, who at the same time relieved us of their loads, by
slipping off stealthily into the bush.
The fifteenth was a forced halt, as the stream was so deep and so
violent we could not cross it. To make the best of this very
unfortunate interruption, I now sent on two men to Kaze, with
letters to Musa and Sheikh Snay, both old friends on the former
expedition, begging them to send me sixty men, each carrying
thirty rations of grain, and some country tobacco. The tobacco
was to gratify my men, who said of all things they most wanted to
cheer them was something to smoke. At the same time I sent back
some other men to Khoko, with cloth to buy grain for present
consumption, as some of my porters were already reduced to living
on wild herbs and white ants. I then sent all the remaining men,
under the directions of Bombay and Baraka, to fell a tall tree
with hatchets, on the banks of the nullah, with a view to
bridging it; but the tree dropped to the wrong side, and thwarted
the plan. The rain ceased on the 17th, just as we put the rain-
gauge out, which was at once interpreted to be our Uganga, or
religious charm, and therefore the cause of its ceasing.
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