After Some Hours' Toil
We Reached One Of The Islands.
Here we met an old friend, the bramble-bush.
My strong moleskins were quite worn through at the knees,
and the leather trowsers of my companion were torn and his legs bleeding.
Tearing my handkerchief in two, I tied the pieces round my knees,
and then encountered another difficulty.
We were still forty or fifty yards
from the clear water, but now we were opposed by great masses of papyrus,
which are like palms in miniature, eight or ten feet high,
and an inch and a half in diameter. These were laced together
by twining convolvulus, so strongly that the weight of both of us
could not make way into the clear water. At last we fortunately found
a passage prepared by a hippopotamus. Eager as soon as we reached the island
to look along the vista to clear water, I stepped in and found
it took me at once up to the neck.
Returning nearly worn out, we proceeded up the bank of the Chobe
till we came to the point of departure of the branch Sanshureh; we then went
in the opposite direction, or down the Chobe, though from the highest trees
we could see nothing but one vast expanse of reed, with here and there
a tree on the islands. This was a hard day's work; and when we came
to a deserted Bayeiye hut on an ant-hill, not a bit of wood or any thing else
could be got for a fire except the grass and sticks of the dwelling itself.
I dreaded the "Tampans", so common in all old huts; but outside of it
we had thousands of mosquitoes, and cold dew began to be deposited,
so we were fain to crawl beneath its shelter.
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