Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-23


teen hundred miles of veldt and
bush country had been traversed. And now
my Katir boy and | stood viewing the river s
toward which we had SO long been toiling. !
Spectacuarly, reward was not great The 7
sluggish water beyond the tall reeds that
reached back for three hundred yards
the low shore not impressive sight;
but there some satisfaction in the
thought that, such it was was one OF :.
the few white who had ever beheld this a
remote portion of the jungle stream An C.
other DR.. Livingstone, who few miles ~ NJ
farther up, had been buried on its bank. X
Nature, | had found had set up strong ~
barriers against journey ing in the 'Zambesi "
CONTEMPORARIES of dense jungles for great
distances, barriers of intense heat, of months
of rain, of poisonous tSetSe flies, OF deadly
Zanlbes fever. And yet she seemed to be
guarding nothing of special value. Contrary
to what l had been led to believe by inn
aginative merchants of mining stock, there
little gold. Adventure had been my only
compensation for my toll was satisfied with
it. but not many would be. Savages and wild
beasts have this country. Let them keep it.
We camped a rise of ground that over
looked the river, and were visited by a big
crowd of negroes who sat around at a little
distance staring at u.s. just those on the
Umniati had done, until it was too dark to
see These were very black Katirs, and from
the mouth of each two upper front teeth were
missing. Several times | made friendly adj
vances toward them, but they moved off like
tirnid children Their good physical condition in
dictated that they had plenty of corn They cast no
hungry eyes upon US, had friends of the
Umniati, showed signs of any feeling except
that of wonder. Thus relieved of fear of attack,
my Matebele boy and l enjoyed of mind as
we broiled our btong and built, as usual, our brush
wall a protection against the lions and hyenas.
Even this we found we did not need, because, al
though heard beasts in their rambles along the
hill above, none came near.
Crisis in Exploring Trip
TT peaceful night and yet, as lay awake by
the fire, with the heavy croaking of frogs and the
doleful chanting of insects in my ears feeling of
the isolation OF my position came wildly upon me-
| was hundreds of miles away from any of my kind.
Gathering clouds had begun to foretell the coming
of the rainy season, when faithful donkeys,
bitten by the flies, would probably die. Thanks to
Fifteen who, at the fixed times, had always meas
ured out the quinne with anxious care had been
free for several months from fever, but any day
the attacks mgh return. Ill and donkeyless in the
jungle, would be in bad way. 1t was high time,
| decided, that we were turning southwark. In the
morning Fifteen and discussed the route.
up Ilver and home on a other side OF noun
sights | rather suspected that Fifteen wanted to
avoid another encounter with the savages who were
hostile his tribe and for this did not blame him,
but | also knew that he sincere in mentioning
sights because his greed for adventure and eX
ploratlon was as great as mine. We agreed that we
should go up the Zambesi until we could find and
follow of the streams flowing into it from
the south on the western side of the Mafumgobuzi
Mountains both realizing that it would be suicidal
to attempt to cut across the jungle because the I'm
deTbruSh was dense, and it was doubtful II there
any water.
Even here on the Zambesi the procuring of water
was not so easy. The reeds that lined the bank IN
wide border grew close together, and
covered with sharp prongs, that it was almost inn
possible to get through them On my first attempt,
after crawling little distance was driven back
by prowlng lon and after that always skirted the
edge until l found of the deep trails worn by
many generations of hippos on their goings and
comings between their feeding grounds and the
river. These would have afforded convenient paths
to water, had it been for the delay in locating
them from new camping place, and for the fact
that one was likely to find hppos in possession, as
! learned one evening
was my way toward the river, and
old bull coming from it. The trail had been so beaten