heads the tangle aloft must have been fairly maddening. So slow did our
progress necessarily become, and so difficult was it to keep in touch
with everybody, that F. and I finally halted for consultation. It was
decided that I should push on ahead with Memba Sasa to make certain that
we were not on the wrong line, while F. and the askaris struggled with
the safari.

Therefore I took my compass bearing afresh, and plunged into the scrub.
The sensation was of hitting solid ground after a long walk through
sand. We seemed fairly to shoot ahead and out of sight. Whenever we came
upon earth we marked it deeply with our heels; we broke twigs downwards,
and laid hastily-snatched bunches of grass to help the trail we were
leaving for the others to follow. This, in spite of our compass, was a
very devious track. Besides, the thorn bushes were patches of spiky aloe
coming into red flower, and the spears of sisal.

After an hour's steady, swift walking the general trend of the country
began to slope downwards. This argued a watercourse between us and the
hills around Kilimanjaro. There could be no doubt that we would cut it;
the only question was whether it, like so many desert watercourses,
might not prove empty. We pushed on the more rapidly. Then we caught a
glimpse through a chance opening, of the tops of trees below us. After
another hour we suddenly burst from the scrub to a strip of green grass
beyond which were the great trees, the palms, and the festooned vines of
a watercourse. Two bush bucks plunged into the thicket as we approached,
and fifteen or twenty mongooses sat up as straight and stiff as so many
picket pins the better to see us.

For a moment my heart sank. The low undergrowth beneath the trees
apparently swept unbroken from where we stood to the low bank opposite.