At This Point, Above The Junction Of Its Principal Tributary
Rivers, It Was A Stream About Sixty Or Seventy Feet Wide, Flowing
Swift Between High Banks.
A few trees marked its course, but
nothing like a jungle.
The ford was in swift water just above a
deep still pool suspected of crocodiles. We found the water about
waist deep, stretched a rope across, and forcibly persuaded our
eager boys that one at a time was about what the situation
required. On the other side we made camp on an open flat. Having
marched so far continuously, we resolved to settle down for a
while. The men had been without sufficient meat; and we desired
very much to look over the country closely, and to collect a few
heads as trophies.
Perhaps a word might not come amiss as to the killing of game.
The case is here quite different from the condition of affairs at
home. Here animal life is most extraordinarily abundant; it
furnishes the main food supply to the traveller; and at present
is probably increasing slightly, certainly holding its own.
Whatever toll the sportsman or traveller take is as nothing
compared to what he might take if he were an unscrupulous game
hog. If his cartridges and his shoulder held out, he could easily
kill a hundred animals a day instead of the few he requires. In
that sense, then, no man slaughters indiscriminately. During the
course of a year he probably shoots from two hundred to two
hundred and fifty beasts, provided he is travelling with an
ordinary sized caravan.
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