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:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 358 of 662
Words from 96780 to 97032
of 178435
