With This
Cringing, Perfidious Appeal I Refused To Comply, Until The
Sheikh, Still More Cringing, Implored Me To Give Way Else Not A
Single Man Would Remain With Me.
I then told him to settle with
the chief himself, and give me the account, which amounted to
three barsati, two sahari, and three yards merikani; but the
donkeys were never alluded to.
With half my men gone, I still ordered the march, though strongly
opposed to the advice of one of old Mamba's men, who was then
passing by on his way to the coast, in command of his master's
rear detachment. He thought it impossible for us to pull through
the wilderness, with its jungle grasses and roots, depending for
food only on Grant's gun and my own; still we made half-way to
the Mdaburu nullah, taking some of Mamba's out to camp with us,
as he promised to take letters and specimens down to the coast
for us, provided I paid him some cloths as ready money down, and
promised some more to be paid at Zanzibar. These letters
eventually reached home, but not the specimens.
The rains were so heavy that the whole country was now flooded,
but we pushed on to the nullah by relays, and pitched on its left
bank. In the confusion of the march, however, we lost many more
porters, who at the same time relieved us of their loads, by
slipping off stealthily into the bush.
The fifteenth was a forced halt, as the stream was so deep and so
violent we could not cross it. To make the best of this very
unfortunate interruption, I now sent on two men to Kaze, with
letters to Musa and Sheikh Snay, both old friends on the former
expedition, begging them to send me sixty men, each carrying
thirty rations of grain, and some country tobacco. The tobacco
was to gratify my men, who said of all things they most wanted to
cheer them was something to smoke. At the same time I sent back
some other men to Khoko, with cloth to buy grain for present
consumption, as some of my porters were already reduced to living
on wild herbs and white ants. I then sent all the remaining men,
under the directions of Bombay and Baraka, to fell a tall tree
with hatchets, on the banks of the nullah, with a view to
bridging it; but the tree dropped to the wrong side, and thwarted
the plan. The rain ceased on the 17th, just as we put the rain-
gauge out, which was at once interpreted to be our Uganga, or
religious charm, and therefore the cause of its ceasing. 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.
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