It Was
The First Fine Day For A Fortnight, So We Were Only Too Glad To
Put All Our Things Out To Dry, And Rejoiced To Think Of The
Stream's Subsiding.
My men who went back to Khoko for grain
having returned with next to nothing - though, of course, they
Had spent all the cloths - I sent back another batch with pretty
cloths, as it was confidently stated that grain was so scarce
there, nothing but the best fabrics would but it. This also
proved a dead failure; but although animals were very scarce,
Grant relieved our anxiety by shooting a zebra and an antelope.
After five halts, we forded the stream, middle deep, and pushed
forwards again, doing short stages of four or five miles a-day,
in the greatest possible confusion; for, whilst Grant and I were
compelled to go out shooting all day for the pot, the sheikh and
Bombay went on with the first half of the property and then,
keeping guard over it sent the men back again to Baraka, who kept
rear-guard, to have the rest brought on. Order there was none:
the men hated this "double work;" all the Wanyamuezi but three
deserted, with the connivance of the coast-men, carrying off
their loads with them, under a mutual understanding, as I found
out afterwards, that the coast-men were to go shares in the
plunder as soon as we reached Unyamuezi. The next great obstacle
in this tug-and-pull wilderness-march presented itself on the
24th, when, after the first half of the property had crossed the
Mabunguru nullah, it rose in flood and cut off the rear half.
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