There were some rocky-looking hills lying to
the south-west of Tsavo which I was particularly
anxious to explore, so on one occasion when
work had been stopped for the day owing to
lack of material, I set off for them, accompanied
by Mahina and a Punjaubi coolie, who was so
stout that he went by the name of Moota
(i.e. "Fattie"). In the course of my little
excursions round Tsavo I gradually discovered
that I was nearly always able to make my way
to any required point of the compass by following
certain well-defined animal paths, which I mapped
out bit by bit during my explorations. On this
occasion, for instance, as soon as we had crossed
the river and had struck into the jungle, we were
fortunate enough to find a rhino path leading in
the right direction, which greatly facilitated our
progress. As we were making our way along
this path through the dry bed of a nullah, I
happened to notice that the sandy bottom sparkled
here and there where the sunbeams penetrated
the dense foliage. This at once filled my head
with thoughts of precious stones, and as the spot
looked likely enough, I started to dig vigorously at
the gravel with my hunting knife. After a few
minutes of this work, I came across what I at first
took to be a magnificent diamond sparkling in
the damp sand: it was about half an inch long,
and its facets looked as if they had been cut
by an Amsterdam expert.
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