Guyndem, my other gunbearer, soon came up with knives. The carcase was soon skinned and cut up, and I sent back for two donkeys to carry the flesh into camp; it made two heavy loads for the donkeys, and the head and skin taxed the strength of the donkey-driver as he carried it home. I found that the animal had been hit by three bullets; one of these was a very curious shot: when I had fired at him with the Express, and thought it was a miss, the bullet had entered and exactly divided the hartebeest's tail as he was galloping straight away from me. This shot must have entered his entrails and stopped him considerably; the two other bullets were the shots that broke the hock of one of his hind-legs and the fetlock-joint of the other. There was great rejoicing amongst the servants and donkey-drivers, who had abundance to eat; and three long strings of jerked meat might be seen festooning the trees near camp. They dried the meat on the leather thongs with which the baggage was tied on the donkeys; these thongs were stretched from tree to tree.
I returned to camp completely done up; and I do not think the chase after the deer, under the hot sun, did me very much good; but still a little sport, when you have been ill for some time, cheers you very much. I had been trying to make little snares to catch small birds with, and especially the doves, that came down in great quantities to drink at the water-pools. It was rather amusing to watch them on these occasions, but they were far too wary to be caught by such clumsy contrivances.
March 3.—Went out this morning to look for some gazelles, of which there are generally two or three in a little patch of very high grass that escaped the fire at the time the rest of the dry grass was burnt. I saw a buck gazelle and fired both barrels of the Express, and missed. I then went and stood on an ant-hill in the middle of the patch of high grass; two does got up close under my feet and rushed away. I fired both barrels, and missed. The gazelle is by no means an easy thing to hit with a rifle when it is going fast, as it is very small. I was rather disgusted with this bad shooting, and was walking back to camp when up rose another buck. I fired one barrel, and missed; this shot seemed to turn him, and he went away parallel to the direction I was going in, offering a shoulder shot. I rolled him over with my left barrel as he was cantering along; he gave two or three convulsive bounds, and, when I got up to him, he was quite dead; there is nothing like an Express bullet for deadliness. Goubasee made a bag of the skin, and I kept the head.
When I got back to camp I found that H. had sent me some more provisions, and I also got a letter from him, written on an envelope:—
"Barrakee's Village, Sunday, February 28th.
"The coolies have just come back. I am very glad you got the flour from the caravan—that was first-rate; but I am sorry you are not coming on yet. As for this village, it is a horrid place, and there is nothing to shoot within miles of it. It is up on a hill, but is on the way to the Mareb; and so to-morrow I am going to start with Fisk, Barrakee, Brou, and three or four coolies. I shall leave some behind for you, and they will bring you on; Barrakee is going to leave a man to show you the way. I hope I shall have better luck than on the Tackazzee. As for flour, I cannot send you as much as I would, but still send a good lot. We have hardly any empty bags. We sent you three the other day; but when you get here have them filled up, and come down. I send a bundle of letters down, addressed to the consul at Suez—will you see that one coolie, if not two, takes them down to Massowah, to catch the steamer on the 24th of March, as it only takes nine days at the outside to get from Coom-Coom-Dema to Massowah. Do send them for me to Arrekel Bey, and ask him to post them. I send them to you, as I know you will have some letters to send too. I have no ink or paper left. This is the last—and I am writing to you now with gunpowder and milk, which does capitally. I am fearfully sorry about you, and should come back if I thought I could do any good; but I know I really could not. But I trust, old fellow, you will be all right by the time you receive this. I shall not send the flour off from here till daylight on Tuesday morning, or if I can I will arrange for it to leave on Monday (to-morrow) evening. They are working hard now, grinding a dollar's worth for us to take; and I am sending you some honey, one bottle of brandy, potatoes, onions, and some eggs. One donkey takes the flour and two of our coolies.
"Monday morning, March 1st.
"Your flour will leave this afternoon. Cassa here, in charge of the baggage left behind. Shall be back to-day fortnight; but they will show you the way down when they come.
"Ever yours,
"H."
I must explain to my readers that the Mareb which H. talks of in this letter is the same river that we were on before, he being many miles lower down its course, in fact, much nearer the plains than where we had been.