"No man to nurse despair;
But in the teeth of clenched antagonisms
To follow the worthiest till he die."
I quote from my diary of August 18th.
The idiot fell asleep last night. His troubles are over, and we have buried him.
I wonder if Tennyson were here, who wrote such noble lines, what he would think of our state. A few days ago I was chief of 370 men, rich in goods, munitions of war, medicines, and contented with such poor comforts as we had, and to-day I have actually only eighteen men left fit for a day's march, the rest have vanished. I should be glad to know where.
If 389 picked men, such as we were when we left Yambuya, are unable to reach Lake Albert, how can Major Barttelot with 250 men make his way through this endless forest. We have travelled, on an average, 1887.
Aug. 18.
Itiri. 8 hours per day for forty-four days since leaving Yambuya. At two miles per hour we ought, by this date, to have arrived on the Lake shore, but, instead of being there, we have accomplished just a third of the distance. The poet says we must not "nurse despair," for to do that is to lie down and die, to make no effort, and abandon hope.
Our wounded take considerable time to heal. The swelling is increasing, the wounds are most painful, not one has yet proved fatal, but they are all quite incapacitated from duty.
The fifth rain of this month began at 8 A.M. Had we not enough afflictions without this perpetual rain? One is almost tempted to think that the end is approaching. The very "flood gates of heaven" seem opened, and nature is dissolving. Such a body of rain is falling that the view of all above is obscured by the amazing fall of rain-drops. Think of the countless numbers of leaves in this forest, and that every leaf drops ten to twenty times per minute, and that from the soaking ground rises a grey cloud of minute rain in vapour, and that the air is full of floating globules of water and flying shreds of leaves! And add to all this the intense fall of rain as the blast comes bearing down the top, and whips drowning showers on us, and sways the countless branches, and rushes wailing through the glades with such force, as though it would wrench the groaning trees out of the earth. The moaning and groaning of the forest is far from comforting, and the crashing and fall of mighty trees is far from assuring, but it is a positive terror when the thunder rumbles above, and its sounds reverberating through the aisles and crooked corridors of the forest, and the blazing lightning darts spitefully hither and thither its forky tongues and sheets of flame, and explodes over our heads with overwhelming and deafening shocks. It would be a vast relief for our sick and wounded to be free of such sounds. An European battle has no such variety. And throughout the day this has continued unceasingly. It is now about the tenth hour of the day. It is scarcely 1887.
Aug. 18.
Itiri. possible daylight will ever appear again, at least so I judge from the human faces steeped in misery. Their owners appear stupefied by terror, woe, sickness, loss of friends, hunger, rain and thunder, and general wretchedness. They may be seen crouching under plantain-leaf sheds, native shields, cotton shelters, straw mats, earthen and copper pots above their heads, even saddles, tent canvass covers, blankets, each body wreathed in blue vapour, self-absorbed with speechless anguish. The poor asses with their ears drawn back, inverted eyes and curving backs, captive fowls with drooping crests represent abject discomfort. Alas! the glory of this earth is quite extinguished. When she finally recovered her beauty, and her children assumed their proud bearing, and the growing lakes and increasing rivers were dried up, and how out of chaos the sun rose to comfort the world again I know not. My own feeling of misery had so exhausted me that a long sleep wrapped me in merciful oblivion.
August 19th.—Still without news of land caravan. The scouts have returned without having seen any traces of the missing. Two of the wounded men are doing very badly. Their sufferings appear to be terrible.
August 20th.—Still without news of caravan. Young Saadi wounded by a poisoned arrow on the morning of the 14th, is attacked with tetanus, and is in a very dangerous condition. Wherefore I take it to be a vegetable poison. Khalfan's neck and spine have become rigid. I have given both morphine by injection, but the doses though double, that is in half grains, do not appear to ease the sufferers much. Stairs is just the same as yesterday, neither worse nor better. The wound is painful, still he has appetite, and enjoys sleep. I fear the effect on him of knowing what the other patients are undergoing.
It is strange that out of 300 people and 3 officers, not one has sense enough to know that he has lost the road, and that the best way of recovering it would be to retrace their steps to Avisibba and try again.