Never had the party seen more miserable-looking creatures.
Every bone showed through their skin, and they were evidently half starved.
They would not kill the cattle, and only ate one when it happened to die of sickness.
“What do you eat?” asked Sherif, and was delighted to think that he could make himself understood.
“Rats, snakes, lizards, and fish,” was the reply.
The fish, they found, were caught by spearing, the natives casting the harpoon at random among the reeds; thus, out of several hundred casts, they might, by good luck, catch one fish.
The natives said the chief’s name was Klatch, and Sherif sent for him.
A few minutes and a tall, well-formed man appeared, accompanied by two women.
Klatch wore a leopard skin across his shoulders, and a skull cap of white beads, with a crest of white ostrich feathers; but the mantle which was slung across his shoulders was his only attempt at clothing.
He spoke of one of the women as his wife, and the other as his daughter.