On The Following Evening I Took A Stroll Over
The Burnt Ground To Look For Game.
No elephants had visited the spot;
but as I was walking along expecting nothing, up jumped a wild boar and
sow from the entrance of a large hole of the Manis, or great scaled
anteater.
Being thus taken by surprise, the boar very imprudently
charged me, and was immediately knocked over dead by a shot through the
spine from the little Fletcher rifle, while the left-hand barrel rolled
over his companion, who almost immediately recovered and disappeared in
the grass jungle; however, there was pork for those who liked it, and I
went to the camp and sent a number of natives to bring it home. The Obbo
people were delighted, as it was their favourite game, but none of my
people would touch the unclean animal. The wild pigs of this country
live underground; they take possession of the holes made by the Manis:
these they enlarge and form cool and secure retreats.
A bad attack of fever laid me up until the 31st of December. On the
first day of January, 1864, I was hardly able to stand, and was nearly
worn out at the very time that I required my strength, as we were to
start south in a few days.
Although my quinine had been long since exhausted, I had reserved ten
grains to enable me to start in case the fever should attack me at the
time of departure. I now swallowed my last dose, and on 3d January, I
find the following note in my journal: "All ready for a start tomorrow.
I trust the year 1864 will bring better luck than the past, that having
been the most annoying that I have ever experienced, and full of fever.
I hope now to reach Kamrasi's country in a fortnight, and to obtain
guides from him direct to the lake. My Latooka, to whom I have been very
kind, has absconded: there is no difference in any of these savages; if
hungry, they will fawn upon you, and when filled, they will desert. I
believe that ten years' residence in the Soudan and this country would
spoil an Angel, and would turn the best heart to stone."
It was difficult to procure porters, therefore I left all my effects at
my camp in charge of two of my men, and I determined to travel light,
without the tent, and to take little beyond ammunition and cooking
utensils. Ibrahim left forty-five men in his zareeba, and on the 5th of
January we started. Mrs. Baker rode her ox, but my animal being very
shy, I ordered him to be driven for about a mile with the others to
accustom him to the crowd: not approving of the expedition, he bolted
into the high grass with my English saddle, and I never saw him again.
In my weak state I had to walk. We had not gone far when a large fly
fastened upon Mrs. Baker's ox, just by his tail, the effect of which was
to produce so sudden a kick and plunge, that he threw her to the ground
and hurt her considerably:
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