It may be asked, why did I not send on? But whom could I send when no
one knew the way, except the woman, Jeel, whom I feared to part with
lest I should see her no more? Moreover, what was the use of sending,
since the messengers could take no help? If everyone at the camp was
dead, as rumour told us--well, they were dead. And if they lived, the
hope was that they might live a little longer. Meanwhile, I dared not
part with my guide, nor dared I leave the relief wagons to go on with
her alone. If I did so, I knew that I should never see them again,
since only the prestige of their being owned by a white man who was not
a Portuguese prevented the natives from looting them.

It was a truly awful journey. My first idea had been to follow the
banks of the Crocodile River, which is what I should have attempted had
I not chanced on the woman, Jeel. Lucky was it that I did not do so,
since I found afterwards that this river wound about a great deal and
was joined by impassable tributaries. Also it was bordered by forests.
Jeel's track, on the contrary, followed an old slave road that, bad as
it was, avoided the swampy places of the surrounding country, and those
native tribes which the experience of generations of the traders in this
iniquitous traffic showed to be most dangerous.


Nine days of fearful struggle had gone by. We had camped one night
below the crest of a long slope strewn with great rocks, many of which
we were obliged to roll out of the path by main force in order to make a
way for the wagons. The oxen had to lie in their yokes all night, since
we dared not let them loose fearing lest they should stray; also lions
were roaring in the distance, although, game being plentiful, these did
not come near to us. As soon as there was any light we let out the
teams to fill themselves on the tussocky grass that grew about, and