_August 19th._--Still without news of land caravan. The scouts have returned without having seen any traces of the missing. Two of the wounded men are doing very badly. Their sufferings appear to be terrible.
_August 20th._--Still without news of caravan. Young Saadi wounded by a poisoned arrow on the morning of the 14th, is attacked with tetanus, and is in a very dangerous condition. Wherefore I take it to be a vegetable poison. Khalfan's neck and spine have become rigid. I have given both morphine by injection, but the doses though double, that is in half grains, do not appear to ease the sufferers much. Stairs is just the same as yesterday, neither worse nor better. The wound is painful, still he has appetite, and enjoys sleep. I fear the effect on him of knowing what the other patients are undergoing.
It is strange that out of 300 people and 3 officers, not one has sense enough to know that he has lost the road, and that the best way of recovering it would be to retrace their steps to Avisibba and try again.
_August 21st._--Poor Khalfan wounded in the windpipe on the 10th instant, and the young fellow Saadi hurt on the morning of the 14th; both died in the night, after intolerable agonies--one at 4 A.M., Saadi about midnight. Khalfan's wound was caused by a poisoned arrow; but the poison must have been laid on the arrow some days before it was used. He had been daily getting weaker from abstinence from food, because of pain. The wound did not seem dangerous; it had closed up, externally, and there were no signs of inflammation; but the poor fellow complained he could not swallow. He had subsisted on liquid food made of plantain flour gruel. On the 8th day his neck became rigid and contracted; he could not articulate, but murmur; the head was inclined forward, the abdomen was shrunk, and on his face lines of pain and anxiety became fixed. Yesterday he had some slight spasms. I gave two injections of half a grain hypodermically, which relieved him for an hour, but, not much accustomed to treat patients with morphia, I feared giving larger doses. Saadi was punctured on the right forearm, midway between wrist and elbow--a mere wound, such as a coarse stocking needle would have made. The wound was sucked by a comrade; it was syringed with warm water and dressed, but on the morning of the fourth day he was attacked with tetanus of so severe a kind that his case was hopeless from our sheer inability to relieve him from the frightful spasms. Morphia injections rendered him slightly somnolent; but the spasms continued, and Saadi died on the 111th hour after receiving the wound. I am inclined to think that the arrow was smeared for the fight of the 14th the night previous.