In the afternoon I received a note from Mr. Jephson, who was behind with the boat: "For God's sake, if you can get any food at the village send us some."
We despatched answer to Jephson to hunt up the wounded elephant that I had shot, and which had taken 1887.
Oct. 9.
Forest. refuge on an island near him, and in reply to his anxious letter, a small handful of corn.
On the 9th of October 100 men volunteered to go across river and explore inland from the north bank with a resolute intention not to return without food of some kind. I went up river with the boat's crew, and Stairs down river to strike inland by a little track in the hope that it might lead to some village; those who were too dispirited to go far wandered southward through the woods to search for wild fruit and forest beans. This last article was about four times the size of a large garden bean, encased in a brown leathery rind. At first we had contented ourselves with merely skinning it and boiling it, but this produced sickness of the stomach. An old woman captured on the island was seen to prepare a dish of these beans by skinning them and afterwards cleaning the inner covering, and finally scraping them as we would nutmegs. Out of this floury substance she made some patties for her captor, who shouted in ecstasies that they were good. Whereupon everybody bestirred themselves to collect the beans, which were fairly plentiful. Tempted by a "lady finger" cake of this article that was brought to me, I ventured to try it, and found it sufficiently filling, and about as palatable as a mess of acorns. Indeed, the flavour strongly reminded me of the acorn. The fungi were of several varieties, some pure and perfect mushrooms, others were of a less harmless kind; but surely the gods protected the miserable human beings condemned to live on such things. Grubs were collected, also slugs from the trees, caterpillars, and white ants—these served for meat. The mabengu (nux vomica) furnished the dessert, with fenessi or a species of bastard jack fruit.
The following day some of the foragers from across the river returned bringing nothing. They had discovered such emptiness on the north bank as we had found on the south bank; but "Inshallah!" they said, "we shall find food either to-morrow or the next day."
1887.
Oct. 10.
Forest. In the morning I had eaten my last grain of Indian corn, and my last portion of everything solid that was obtainable, and at noon the horrid pains of the stomach had to be satisfied with something. Some potato leaves brought me by Wadi Khamis, a headman, were bruised fine and cooked. They were not bad, still the stomach ached from utter depletion. Then a Zanzibari, with his face aglow with honest pride, brought me a dozen fruit of the size and colour of prize pear, which emitted a most pleasant fruity odour. He warranted them to be lovely, and declared that the men enjoyed them, but the finest had been picked out for myself and officers. He had also brought a pattie made out of the wood-bean flour which had a rich custardy look about it. With many thanks I accepted this novel repast, and I felt a grateful sense of fulness. In an hour, however, a nausea attacked me, and I was forced to seek my bed. The temples presently felt as if constricted by an iron band, the eyes blinked strangely, and a magnifying glass did not enable me to read the figures of Norie's Epitome. My servant, with the rashness of youth, had lunched bravely on what I had shared with him of the sweetly-smelling pear-like fruit, and consequently suffered more severely. Had he been in a little cockle boat on a mad channel sea he could scarcely have presented a more flabby and disordered aspect than had been caused by the forest pears.
Just at sunset the foragers of No. 1 Company, after an absence of thirty-six hours, appeared from the N. bank, bringing sufficient plantains to save the Europeans from despair and starvation; but the men received only two plantains each, equal to four ounces of solid stuff, to put into stomachs that would have required eight pounds to satisfy.
The officers Stairs, Jephson, and Parke, had been amusing themselves the entire afternoon in drawing fanciful menus, where such things figured as:—
Filet de bœuf en Chartreuse.
Petites bouchées aux huîtres de Ostende.
Bécassines rôties à la Londres.