Our waiting men gave vent to a yell of delight, and rushed down to secure the carcase; but, to their dismay, before they could reach it the current washed it away and wedged it tightly between two rocks at the top of the small waterfall which gave exit to the pool. The pressure of the water on the body was very great, but the men needed food so badly that we made the most Herculean efforts to dislodge it by the aid of ropes and poles. After an hour’s hard work, we managed to free it, only to be thrown into the utmost consternation by the body sinking immediately to the bottom of the next pool. The men flatly refused to go into the water to look for it, as there were all sorts of queer holes in the rocks into which one could have been washed by the current and crushed or drowned, and in addition, there was the ever-present fear of crocodiles.
We sounded with poles till our arms ached, and were about to give up in despair when one or two of the men, bolder or more hungry than their fellows, jumped in and attempted to dive. Suddenly one of them came to the surface with a joyful shout, saying he had found the carcase at the bottom of the pool in ten feet of water. We gave him the end of a stout line in order that he might dive again and make it fast to one of the feet. This he attempted to do, but after repeated trials he confessed himself beaten.
There being no other help for it, I undertook the task myself, and at the third attempt, after a lot of manœuvring in the swift current, I succeeded in making the line fast round one of the legs just above the foot. Success at last seemed certain, and by dint of pulling gently on the line, we at length raised the body slowly to the surface. The excited men raised a shout of joy, which died away in a wail of bitter disappointment as the frail rope parted and the hippo sank once more to the bottom of the pool. I was by this time almost exhausted and shivering with cold, but again I essayed the task of making the rope fast, and eventually succeeded, and at length, by steady and persistent pulling on the untrustworthy line, we drew the body ashore just as the dusk fell.
The men at once set to work with their knives, and very shortly the cooking-pots were bubbling merrily away, and our hungry followers proceeded to gorge themselves on the meat; a congenial occupation which commanded their earnest attention until the early hours of the following morning.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] The Bongo of the Bahr el Ghazal also bury their dead in the sitting position, covering the body with logs and branches instead of stones.
CHAPTER XVII.
ARRIVAL AT M’THARA.
In sight of Kenia once more—El Hakim and the lion—The “Green Camp” again—The baby water-buck—El Hakim shoots an elephant—The buried buffalo horns destroyed by hyænas—Bad news from M’thara—Plot to attack and massacre us hatched by Bei-Munithu—N’Dominuki’s fidelity—Baked elephant’s foot—Rain—Arrival at our old camp at M’thara.
On resuming the march up-river next morning, we found the road much better than on our journey down the opposite bank. It lay over firm gravelly ridges, littered with quartz débris dotted here and there with scattered thorn bushes. Now and again we crossed patches of mineral salts, some of which we boiled down in the endeavour to obtain some table salt, but the resulting compound tasted more like the nauseous mixtures administered by the family physician in our childhood’s happy days than anything, and was in consequence utterly useless for table purposes.
During the next few days we did not keep rigidly to the Waso Nyiro, but cut across many of the curves, occasionally camping miles away from the river, obtaining the necessary water by digging in the beds of the numerous sand rivers, when it was generally found not far below the surface, in small quantities it is true, but sufficient for our needs if we dispensed with washing. This was the easier as we were quite without soap, and a wash without soap is an unsatisfactory performance anyhow.