Tulo, 21st Sept., 1916.
Heavy rains overnight and all to-day, causing much discomfort, since we have no shelter or clothing against such weather. We have been camping under mere sun-shelters, hastily erected, and protection only from the heat. We had been caught unprepared, and as penalty slept the night in soaking blankets on the sodden ground, while to-day has passed without chance to dry anything, not even our wet blankets. To-morrow, the ambulance will attend more fever cases than ordinarily.
Tulo, 22nd Sept.
Rain has ceased, and everyone in camp is to-day employed rectifying their shelters against a recurrence of downpour by rigging, over their camp spaces, steep-pitched roofs, framed with green poles cut from the bush, and thatched with compact layers of long grass gathered from the surrounding country by our porters. In the afternoon I rode out south-west across the river to look for game, and secured three Reedbuck in open, dried-out swamp country.
Tulo, 23rd Sept.
Remained in camp all day. Overnight heavy firing was heard in the direction of Nkessa’s village. To-day a crocodile was shot in the Mwuha River: it measured 13 feet 1 inch.
Tulo, 25th Sept.
KILLING GAME FOR HUNGRY PORTERS
Nothing new to-day. No fresh news of “our” war, or of the European war, of which we get but scraps of information at intervals. Spent the morning on battery drills and on machine-gun instruction. In this country, where sickness is so rife, it is impossible to keep an efficient gun team together for any length of time. Old hands slip away each week, and men to replace them have endlessly to be instructed in the intricate mechanism of the gun whenever halt gives opportunity. In the afternoon out for a hunt, to keep fit, and to look for buck meat, chiefly for porter food, as their ration issue is very short. But to-day I searched without success, principally through having a local native with me who purposely, or foolishly, took me over what proved to be very poor game country. Nearing camp on the way home, I shot four of those delicious table birds—the wild guinea-fowl, which I have—wanting a shot gun—taken to shooting with our ·303 service rifle; which indeed now serves for the killing of anything from a partridge upwards.