Such Men Destroy All Pleasure, And
Render Exploration A Mere Toil.
No one can imagine the hardships and
annoyances to which we are subject, with the additional disgust of being
somewhat dependent upon the traders' band of robbers.
For this miserable
situation my vakeel is entirely responsible; had my original escort been
faithful, I should have been entirely independent, and could with my
transport animals have penetrated far south before the commencement of
the rainy season. Altogether I am thoroughly sick of this expedition,
but I shall plod onwards with dogged obstinacy; God only knows the end.
I shall be grateful should the day ever arrive once more to see Old
England."
Both my wife and I were excessively ill with bilious fever, and neither
could assist the other. The old chief, Katchiba, hearing that we were
dying, came to charm us with some magic spell. He found us lying
helpless, and he immediately procured a small branch of a tree, and
filling his mouth with water, he squirted it over the leaves and about
the floor of the hut; he then waved the branch around my wife's head,
also around mine, and completed the ceremony by sticking it in the
thatch above the doorway; he told us we should now get better, and
perfectly: satisfied, he took his leave. The hut was swarming with rats
and white ants, the former racing over our bodies during the night, and
burrowing through the floor, filling our only room with mounds like
molehills.
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