THE QUEEN OF THE DWARFS.
March 13th to April 1st.—By the 25th I was well 1888.
March 25.
Fort Bodo. enough to be able to move about a few hundred yards at a time. My arm was still stiff and I was exceedingly feeble. Nelson has recovered somewhat from his successive fits of illness. During my convalescence I have been supported each afternoon to the centre of a lofty colonnade of trees, through which our road to the Nyanza leads, where in an easy chair I have passed hours of reading and drowsing.
It has been a daily delight while helped to my leafy arcade to observe the rapid change in the growth of the corn in the fields, and to see how we have been encroaching upon the forest. Our cultivable area, after being cleaned, hoed, and planted, was not long left with its bare brown face naked. On a certain day it became green with the young corn blades, it had sprouted by thousands as though at the word of command. Only yesterday, as it were, we smiled to see the tender white stalk arched for a spring under a slowly rising clod, a now the clods have been brushed aside, the arched stalks have sprung upright, and the virgin plants have unfolded their tender green crests. Day by day it has been a wonder how the corn has thriven and grown, with what vigour the stalks have thickened, enlarged in leaf, and deepened in green. Side by side in due rank and order they have risen, the blades have extended towards one another in loving embrace, until the whole has become a solid square field of corn, the murmur of which is like the distant wash of a languid sea over a pebbly beach.
This is the music to which I listen devoutly, while my medical friend sits not far off on the watch, and sentries stand still at each end of the avenue on guard. A gentle breeze blows over the forest and breathes upon the corn, causing a universal shiver and motion throughout, and I sit watching the corn tops sway and nod, and salute each other, with the beautiful grace and sweet undertones of many wavelets, until drowsiness overcomes me and seals my senses, and sleep bears me to the region of fantasy. As the sun appears low in the west, and lights the underwood horizontally with mellow 1888.
March 25.
Fort Bodo. light, my kind doctor assists me to my feet and props me, as I wend to the Fort, my corn with dancing motion and waving grace bidding me farewell.
In the warm teeming soil the corn has grown apace until it has reached a prodigious height, tall as the underwood of the forest. Only a few weeks ago I searched amid the clods for a sign of sprouting; a little later and I might still have seen a scampering mouse; a few days ago it was breast high; to-day I look up and I can scarcely touch the point of a rapier-like blade with a five-foot staff, and a troop of elephants might stand underneath undetected. It has already flowered; the ears, great and swelling, lying snug in their manifold sheaths, give promise of an abundant harvest, and I glow with pleasure at the thought that, while absent, there need be no anxiety about the future.
I am resolved to-morrow to make a move towards the Nyanza with the boat. This is the forty-sixth day of Stairs' absence. I had sent twenty couriers—one of whom returned later—to Major Barttelot. Stairs and his personal attendants numbered seven. I shall leave forty-nine in fort; inclusive of Nelson there will be 126 men left to escort the boat to the Nyanza. Total, 201 of advance column remaining out of 389, exclusive of such convalescents as may be obtained at Ugarrowwa's.
Tippu-Tib has evidently been faithless, and the Major is therefore working the double stages, some hundreds of miles behind; the nineteen couriers are speeding towards him, and are probably opposite the Nepoko at this date, and Stairs has found so many men yet crippled with ulcers that he is unable to travel fast. With 126 men I attempt the relief of Emin Pasha the second time. The garrison consists of all those who suffer from debility, anæmia—who were fellow-sufferers with Nelson at Starvation Camp—and leg sores, some of which are perfectly incurable.
The labour performed about the fort is extensive. Nelson has an impregnable place. The fields of corn and beans are thriving, and of the latter I have enjoyed 1888.
March 25.
Fort Bodo. a first dish to-day. The plantain groves appear to be inexhaustible.
Our broad roads extend about half a mile each way. Ten scouts patrol the plantations every morning, that the mischievous pigmies may not destroy the supplies of the garrison, and that no sudden onsets of natives may be made upon the field hands while at work.