Shaw was sick, and the whole duty of driving the foundering caravan devolved upon myself. The Wanyamwezi donkeys stuck in the mire as if they were rooted to it. As fast as one was flogged from his stubborn position, prone to the depths fell another, giving me a Sisyphean labour, which was maddening trader pelting rain, assisted by such men as Bombay and Uledi, who could not for a whole skin's sake stomach the storm and mire. Two hours of such a task enabled me to drag my caravan over a savannah one mile and a half broad; and barely had I finished congratulating myself over my success before I was halted by a deep ditch, which, filled with rain-water from the inundated savannahs, had become a considerable stream, breast-deep, flowing swiftly into the Makata. Donkeys had to be unloaded, led through a torrent, and loaded again on the other bank—an operation which consumed a full hour.

Presently, after straggling through a wood clump, barring our progress was another stream, swollen into a river. The bridge being swept away, we were obliged to swim and float our baggage over, which delayed us two hours more. Leaving this second river-bank, we splashed, waded, occasionally half-swimming, and reeled through mire, water-dripping grass and matama stalks, along the left bank of the Makata proper, until farther progress was effectually prevented for that day by a deep bend of the river, which we should be obliged to cross the next day.

Though but six miles were traversed during that miserable day, the march occupied ten hours.

Half dead with fatigue, I yet could feel thankful tha