quantities of any wood I could lay my hands to. The deluge blotted out
every vestige of daylight and nearly drowned out my fire. I had started
to help C. with the roan, but soon found that I had my own job cut out
for me, and so went back to nursing my blaze. The water descended in
sheets. We were immediately soaked through, and very cold. The surface
of the ground was steep and covered with loose round rocks, and in my
continuous trips for firewood I stumbled and slipped and ran into thorns
miserably.[30]

After a long interval of this the lanterns came bobbing through the
darkness, and a few moments later the dim light revealed the shining
rain-soaked faces of our men.

We wasted no time in the distribution of burdens. C. with one of the
lanterns brought up the rear, while I with the other went on ahead.

Now as Kongoni had but this minute completed the round trip to camp, we
concluded that he would be the best one to give us a lead. This was a
mistake. He took us out of the hills well enough, and a good job that
was, for we could not see the length of our arms into the thick, rainy
blackness, and we had to go entirely by the slants of the country. But
once in the more open, sloping country, with its innumerable bushy or
wooded ravines, he began to stray. I felt this from the first; but
Kongoni insisted strongly he was right, and in the rain and darkness we
had no way of proving him wrong. In fact I had no reason for thinking
him wrong; I only felt it. This sense of direction is apparently a fifth
wheel or extra adjustment some people happen to possess. It has nothing
to do with acquired knowledge, as is very well proved by the fact that
in my own case it acts only as long as I do not think about it. As soon
as I begin consciously to consider the matter I am likely to go wrong.