Even While Staggering Under The Pressure Of The Awful Sickness, With Mind Getting More And More Embittered, Brain Sometimes Reeling

With the shock of the constantly recurring fevers - though I knew how the malaria, rising out of that very fairness,

Was slowly undermining my constitution, and insidiously sapping the powers of mind and body - I regarded the alluring face of the land with a fatuous love, and felt a certain sadness steal over me as each day I was withdrawing myself from it, and felt disposed to quarrel with the fate that seemed to eject me out of Ukawendi.

On the ninth day of our march from the shores of the Tanganika we again perceived our "Magdala Mount," rising like a dark cloud to the north-east, by which I knew that we were approaching Imrera, and that our Icarian attempt to cross the uninhabited jungle of Ukawendi would soon be crowned with success. Against the collective counsel of the guides, and hypothetical suggestions of the tired and hungry souls of our Expedition, I persisted in being guided only by the compass and my chart. The guides strenuously strove to induce me to alter my course and strike in a south-west direction, which, had I listened to them, would have undoubtedly taken me to South-western Ukonongo, or North-eastern Ufipa. The veteran and experienced soldiers asked mournfully if I were determined to kill them with famine, as the road I should have taken was north-east; but I preferred putting my trust in the compass. No sun shone upon us as we threaded our way through the primeval forest, by clumps of jungle, across streams, up steep ridges, and down into deep valleys. A thick haze covered the forests; rain often pelted us; the firmament was an unfathomable depth of grey vapour. The Doctor had perfect confidence in me, and I held on my way.

As soon as we arrived at our camp the men scattered themselves through the forest to search for food. A grove of singwe trees was found close by. Mushrooms grew in abundance, and these sufficed to appease the gnawing hunger from which the people suffered. Had it not been such rainy weather I should have been enabled to procure game for the camp; but the fatigue which I suffered, and the fever which enervated me, utterly prevented me from moving out of the camp after we once came to a halt. The fear of lions, which were numerous in our vicinity, whose terrible roaring was heard by day and by night, daunted the hunters so much, that though I offered five doti of cloth for every animal brought to camp, none dared penetrate the gloomy glades, or awesome belts of timber, outside the friendly defence of the camp.

The morning of the tenth day I assured the people that we were close to food; cheered the most amiable of them with promise of abundant provender, and hushed the most truculent knaves with a warning not to tempt my patience too much, lest we came to angry blows; and then struck away east by north through the forest, with the almost exhausted Expedition dragging itself weakly and painfully behind me.

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