Some Men Are
Told Off To Look After The Mules, Donkeys, And Goats, Whilst Out
Grazing; The Rest Have To Pack The Kit, Pitch Our Tents, Cut
Boughs For Huts, And For Fencing In The Camp - A Thing Rarely
Done, By-The-By.
After cooking, when the night has set it, the
everlasting dance begins, attended with clapping of hands and
jingling
Small bells strapped to the legs - the whole being
accompanied by a constant repetition of senseless words, which
stand in place of the song to the negroes; for song they have
none, being mentally incapacitated for musical composition,
though as timists they are not to be surpassed.
What remains to be told is the daily occupation of Captain Grant,
myself, and our private servants. Beginning at the foot: Rahan,
a very peppery little negro, who had served in a British man-of-
war at the taking of Rangoon, was my valet; and Baraka, who had
been trained much in the same manner, but had seen engagements at
Multan, was Captain Grant's. They both knew Hindustani; but
while Rahan's services at sea had been short, Baraka had served
nearly all his life with Englishmen - was the smartest and most
intelligent negro I ever saw - was invaluable to Colonel Rigby as
a detector of slave-traders, and enjoyed his confidence
completely - so much so, that he said, on parting with him, that
he did not know where he should be able to find another man to
fill his post. These two men had now charge of our tents and
personal kit, while Baraka was considered the general of the
Wanguana forces, and Rahan a captain of ten.
My first occupation was to map the country. This is done by
timing the rate of march with a watch, taking compass-bearings
along the road, or on any conspicuous marks - as, for instance,
hills off it - and by noting the watershed - in short, all
topographical objects. On arrival in camp every day came the
ascertaining, by boiling a thermometer, of the altitude of the
station above the sea-level; of the latitude of the station by
the meridian altitude of the star taken with a sextant; and of
the compass variation by azimuth. Occasionally there was the
fixing of certain crucial stations, at intervals of sixty miles
or so, by lunar observations, or distances of the moon either
from the sun or from certain given stars, for determining the
longitude, by which the original-timed course can be drawn out
with certainty on the map by proportion. Should a date be lost,
you can always discover it by taking a lunar distance and
comparing it with the Nautical Almanac, by noting the time when a
star passes the meridian if your watch is right, or by observing
the phases of the moon, or her rising or setting, as compared
with the Nautical Almanac. The rest of my work, besides
sketching and keeping a diary, which was the most troublesome of
all, consisted in making geological and zoological collections.
With Captain Grant rested the botanical collections and
thermometrical registers.
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