As I Had Pointed Out
The Direction In Which Loanda Lay, And Had Only Employed Them
For The Sake Of
Knowing the paths between villages which lay along our route,
and always objected when they led us in any other
Than the Loanda direction,
I wished my men now to go on without the guides, trusting to ourselves
to choose the path which would seem to lead us in the direction
we had always followed. But Mashauana, fearing lest we might wander,
asked leave to give his own cloth, and when the guides saw that,
they came forward shouting "Averie, Averie!"
In the afternoon of this day we came to a valley about a mile wide,
filled with clear, fast-flowing water. The men on foot were chin deep
in crossing, and we three on ox-back got wet to the middle,
the weight of the animals preventing them from swimming.
A thunder-shower descending completed the partial drenching of the plain,
and gave a cold, uncomfortable "packing in a wet blanket" that night.
Next day we found another flooded valley about half a mile wide,
with a small and now deep rivulet in its middle, flowing rapidly
to the S.S.E., or toward the Kasai. The middle part of this flood,
being the bed of what at other times is the rivulet, was so rapid
that we crossed by holding on to the oxen, and the current soon dashed them
to the opposite bank; we then jumped off, and, the oxen being
relieved of their burdens, we could pull them on to the shallower part.
The rest of the valley was thigh deep and boggy, but holding on
by the belt which fastened the blanket to the ox, we each floundered
through the nasty slough as well as we could.
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