In Less Than Five Days After Our Departure From Chunyo Or Marenga Mali, Five Out Of The Nine Donkeys Left To Me At The Time - The Five Healthiest Animals - Fell Victims.

We formed quite an imposing caravan as we emerged from inhospitable Chunyo, in number amounting to about four hundred souls.

We were strong in guns, flags, horns, sounding drums and noise. To Sheikh Hamed, by permission of Sheikh Thani, and myself was allotted the task of guiding and leading this great caravan through dreaded Ugogo; which was a most unhappy selection, as will be seen hereafter.

Marenga Mali, over thirty miles across, was at last before us. This distance had to be traversed within thirty-six hours, so that the fatigue of the ordinary march would be more than doubled by this. From Chunyo to Ugogo not one drop of water was to be found. As a large caravan, say over two hundred souls, seldom travels over one and three-quarter miles per hour, a march of thirty miles would require seventeen hours of endurance without water and but little rest. East Africa generally possessing unlimited quantities of water, caravans have not been compelled for lack of the element to have recourse to the mushok of India and the khirbeh of Egypt. Being able to cross the waterless districts by a couple of long marches, they content themselves for the time with a small gourdful, and with keeping their imaginations dwelling upon the copious quantities they will drink upon arrival at the watering-place.

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