We scrambled
across to the other side, just keeping her head above the water: to have
carried her would have been impossible, as we should all have sunk
together through the weeds. I laid her under a tree, and bathed her head
and face with water, as for the moment I thought she had fainted; but
she lay perfectly insensible, as though dead, with teeth and hands
firmly clenched, and her eyes open, but fixed. It was a coup de soleil.
Many of the porters had gone on ahead with the baggage; and I started
off a man in haste to recall an angarep upon which to carry her, and
also for a bag with a change of clothes, as we had dragged her through
the river. It was in vain that I rubbed her heart, and the black women
rubbed her feet, to endeavour to restore animation. At length the litter
came, and after changing her clothes, she was carried mournfully forward
as a corpse. Constantly we had to halt and support her head, as a
painful rattling in the throat betokened suffocation.
At length we reached a village, and halted for the night. I laid her
carefully in a miserable hut, and watched beside her. I opened her
clenched teeth with a small wooden wedge, and inserted a wet rag, upon
which I dropped water to moisten her tongue, which was dry as fur.
