We resumed our journey, and halted at the base of another series of rapids.
The next day Saat Tato, having explored the rapids, reported encouragingly, and expressed his confidence that without much difficulty these could also be surmounted. This report stimulated the boatmen to make another trial. While the river column was busy in its own peculiar and perilous work, a search party was despatched to hunt news of the missing men, and returned with one man, a box of ammunition, and three rifles. The search party had discovered the deserters in the forest, with a case of ammunition open, which they were distributing. In trying to surround them, the deserters became alarmed and scudded away, leaving three of their rifles and a case behind them.
On the 3rd of September five more deserted, carrying away one case of Remington cartridges, one case of Winchester cartridges, one box of European provisions, and one load of fine Arab clothing, worth £50. Another was detected with a box of provisions open before him, having already abstracted a tin of sago, one tin of Liebig, a tin of butter, and one of milk. Ten men had thus disappeared in a couple of days. At this rate, in sixty days the Expedition would be ended. I consulted the chiefs, but I could gain no encouragement to try what extreme measures would effect. It was patent, however, to the dullest that we should be driven to resort to extremities soon to stop this wholesale desertion and theft. Since leaving Yambuya we had lost forty-eight rifles and fifteen cases of Maxim, Winchester, and Remington ammunition.
The day following four men deserted, and one was caught in the act of desertion. The people were accordingly mustered, and sixty men, suspected of being capable of desertion, as no head man would guarantee their fidelity, were rendered helpless by abstracting the mainsprings of the rifles, which we took and locked up. Demoralisation had set in rapidly since we had met the Manyuema. Nothing was safe in their hands. Boxes had been opened, cloth had been stolen, beads had been pilfered, much ammunition had been taken out of the cases, and either thrown, or secreted as a reserve, by the way.
On September 5th we camped near Hippo Broads, so called because the river was fine and broad, and a large herd of hippopotami were seen. The site of our resting place was an abandoned clearing, which had become the haunts of these amphibiæ, and exquisite bits of greensward caused us to imagine for a moment that possibly the open country was not far. Foragers returned after a visit into the interior, on both banks, with four goats and a few bananas, numbers of roast rats, cooked beetles, and slugs. On the 6th we reached a cataract opposite the Bafaido settlement, where we obtained a respectable supply of plantains. The day following we dragged our canoes over a platform of rock, over a projecting ledge of which the river tumbled 10 feet.