Clouds Had
Portended Rain, And Down It Came, As It Usually Did Once In Every
Twenty-Four Hours.
However, that passed away by the next morning, and
the day broke discovering us about as wet and wretched as we were
accustomed to be.
I now started off four of my men with the boatmen and
the interpreter Bacheeta to the nearest village, to inquire whether our
guide Rabonga had arrived with our riding oxen, as our future travelling
was to be on land, and the limit of our navigation must have been well
known to him. After some hours the people returned, minus the boatmen,
with a message from the headman of a village they had visited, that the
oxen were there, but not the guide Rabonga, who had remained at Magungo,
but that the animals should be brought to us that evening, together with
porters to convey the luggage. In the evening a number of people
arrived, bringing some plantain cider and plantains as a present from
the headman; and promising that, upon the following morning, we should
be conducted to his village.
The next day we started, but not until the afternoon, as we had to await
the arrival of the headman, who was to escort us. Our oxen were brought,
and if we looked wretched, the animals were a match. They had been
bitten by the fly, thousands of which were at this spot. Their coats
were staring, ears drooping, noses running, and heads hanging down; all
the symptoms of fly-bite, together with extreme looseness of the bowels.
I saw that it was all up with our animals.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 476 of 662
Words from 128448 to 128719
of 178435
