As Usual, He Was
Scarred On The Chest And Forehead, And Wore His Hair In A Mop, Held Back
By A Band Of String.
His teeth were a picture, not only clean and white,
which is usual, but uncommonly small and sharp, as
One of us found!
Leaving him to the main party to take on to the well, I and Warri
remained behind to bring Misery on - and a nice job we had too. I thought
of waiting and packing water back to him, but in that case he would have
fallen an easy victim to the natives, who were bound to be prowling
about, nor could one of us be spared to watch him. So he had to be beaten
and hauled and dragged, by stages of twenty yards at a time, over the
ridges. After darkness fell we had to follow the tracks with a firestick
until we had the fire at camp to guide us. This we reached about 9.30
p.m., fairly tired out, but satisfied that the poor, patient sufferer's
life was saved. The others had already started work on the well, but
knocked off when I got back, and we had a good feed and a short rest. Sir
John was much distressed at his party having taken away all their food
when they retreated, and was hardly consoled by what we gave him.
Tethered to a ti-tree, with a little fire to cheer him, he was apparently
happy enough.
The rest of the night we worked at the well in shifts, and Charlie and I,
the first shift, started off soon after daybreak with the buck to find
more water, for it was evident that our present supply was insufficient.
We felt pretty certain from the way the tribe had left that another well
existed close by; the question was, would our captive show it?
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