Throughout This Distance The
Greatest Depth Was About Four Feet, And The Average Was Under Three
Feet.
At length the diahbeeah, which drew only two feet three inches,
was fast aground!
This was at a point where two raised mounds, or
dubbas, were on opposite sides of the river. I left the vessel, and with
Mr. Baker, I explored in the rowing boat for about two miles in advance.
After the first mile, the boat grounded in about six inches of water
upon firm sand. The river, after having deepened for a short space, was
suddenly divided into three separate channels, all of which were too
shallow for the passage of the diahbeeah, and two were even too shallow
to admit the small boat. The boatmen jumped out, and we hauled her up
the shallows until we reached the main stream, above the three channels,
which ran from the S.S.E., but having no greater mean depth than about
two feet six inches.
"We continued for some distance up the stream with the same unfortunate
results. The banks, although flooded during the wet season, were now
dry, and a forest was about a mile distant. Having left the boat and
ascended a white ant-hill, about eight feet high, in order to take a
view of the country, I observed a herd of very beautiful antelopes, of a
kind that were quite un known to me.
"By careful stalking on the flat plain from one ant-hill to another, I
obtained a fair shot at about 140 yards, and killed.
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