My poor donkey from Zanzibar showed symptoms of surrender. Arums and amoma every day since June 28th were no fit food for a dainty Zanzibar ass, therefore to end his misery I shot him. The meat was as carefully shared as though it were the finest venison, for a wild and famished mob threatened to defy discipline. When the meat was fairly served a free fight took place over the skin, the bones were taken up and crushed, the hoofs were boiled for hours, there was nothing left of my faithful animal but the spilled blood and hair; a pack of hyænas could not have made a more thorough disposal of it. That constituent of the human being which marks him as superior to all others of the animal creation was so deadened by hunger that our men had become merely carnivorous bipeds, inclined to be as ferocious as any beast of prey.
On the 16th we crossed through four deep gorges one after another, through wonderful growths of phrynia. The trees frequently bore _fenessi_ nearly ripe, one foot long and eight inches in diameter. Some of this fruit was equal to pineapple, it was certainly wholesome. Even the rotten fruit was not rejected. When the _fenessi_ were absent, the wood-bean tree flourished and kindly sprinkled the ground with its fruit. Nature seemed to confess that the wanderers had borne enough of pain and grief. The deepest solitudes showed increasing tenderness for the weary and long-suffering. The phrynia gave us their brightest red berries, the amoma furnished us with the finest and ripest scarlet fruit, the _fenessi_ were in a state of perfection, the wood-beans were larger and fatter, the streams of the wood glens were clear and cold; no enemy was in sight, nothing was to be feared but hunger, and nature did its best with her unknown treasures, shaded us with her fragrant and loving shades, and whispered to us unspeakable things sweetly and tenderly.
During the mid-day halt the men discussed our prospects. They said, with solemn shaking of their heads, "Know you that such and such a man is dead? that the other is lost! another will probably fall this afternoon! the rest will perish to-morrow!" The trumpet summoned all to their feet, to march on, and strive, and press forward to the goal.