The Women Of The Party Were Soon Hard At Work Grinding, As Many Of The Necessary Stones Had Been Found Among The Ruins.

Fortunately there were three varieties of plants growing wild in great profusion, that, when boiled, were a good substitute for spinach; thus we were rich in vegetables, although without a morsel of fat or animal food.

Our dinner consisted daily of a mess of black porridge of bitter mouldy flour that no English pig would condescend to notice, and a large dish of spinach. "Better a dinner of herbs where love is," etc. often occurred to me; but I am not sure that I was quite of that opinion after a fortnight's grazing upon spinach.

Tea and coffee were things of the past, the very idea of which made our months water; but I found a species of wild thyme growing in the jungles, and this when boiled formed a tolerable substitute for tea. Sometimes our men procured a little wild honey, which added to the thyme tea we considered a great luxury.

This wretched fare, in our exhausted state from fever and general effects of climate, so completely disabled us that for nearly two months my wife lay helpless on one angarep, and I upon the other. Neither of us could walk. The hut was like all in Kamrasi's country, with a perfect forest of thick poles to support the roof (I counted thirty-two); thus, although it was tolerably large, there was but little accommodation. These poles we now found very convenient, as we were so weak that we could not rise from bed without lifting ourselves up by one of the supports.

We were very nearly dead, and our amusement was a childish conversation about the good things in England, and my idea of perfect happiness was an English beefsteak and a bottle of pale ale; for such a luxury I would most willingly have sold my birthright at that hungry moment. We were perfect skeletons, and it was annoying to see how we suffered upon the bad fare, while our men apparently throve. There were plenty of wild red peppers, and the men seemed to enjoy a mixture of porridge and legumes a la sauce piquante. They were astonished at my falling away on this food, but they yielded to my argument when I suggested that a "lion would starve where a donkey grew fat." I must confess that this state of existence did not improve my temper, which, I fear, became nearly as bitter as the porridge. My people had a windfall of luck, as Saat's ox, that had lingered for a long time, lay down to die, and stretching himself out, commenced kicking his last kick. The men immediately assisted him by cutting his throat, and this supply of beef was a luxury which, even in my hungry state, was not the English beefsteak for which I sighed, and I declined the diseased bull.

The men made several long excursions through the country to purchase provisions, but in two months they procured only two kids; the entire country was deserted, owing to the war between Kamrasi and Fowooka. Every day the boy Saat and the woman Bacheeta sallied out and conversed with the inhabitants of the different islands on the river.

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