On the sixth day we made the broth as usual, a pot of butter and a pot of milk for 130 people, and the headmen and Mr. Bonny were called to council. On proposing a reverse to the foragers of such a nature as to cause an utter loss of all, they appeared unable to comprehend such a possibility, though folly after folly, madness after madness, had marked every day of my acquaintance with them. The departure of men secretly on raids, and never returning, the leaping of fifty men into the river after a bush antelope, the throwing away of their rations after fifteen months’ experiences of the forest, the reckless rush into guarded plantations, skewering their feet, the inattention they paid to abrasions leaving them to develope into rabid ulcers; the sale of their rifles to men who would have enslaved them all, follies practised by blockheads day after day, week after week; and then to say they could not comprehend the possibility of a fearful disaster. Were not 300 men with three officers lost in the wood for six days? Were not three persons lost close to this camp yesterday and they have not returned? Did I not tell these men that we should all die if they were not back on the fourth day? Was not this the sixth day of their absence? Were there not fifty people close to death now? and much else of the same kind?
By-and-by, the conviction stole on their minds that if by accident we were to remain in camp inactive for three days, we should then be too weak to seek food; and they agreed with me that it would be a wise thing to bury the goods, and set out on our return to Ngwetza to procure food for ourselves. But there was one difficulty. If we buried the goods, and fifty sick men preferred to remain in the camp to following us, should we return to the _caché_, we should find that the sick had exhumed the goods, and wrecked everything out of pure mischief.
[Illustration: STARVATION CAMP: SERVING OUT MILK AND BUTTER FOR BROTH.]
Mr. Bonny then came to the rescue, and offered to stay with ten men in camp, if I provided food for him and the garrison for ten days, the time we decided we should be absent. Food to make a light gruel for so small a number for ten days was not difficult to find. Half a cupful of cornflour per man for thirteen men for ten days was measured, with the addition of four milk biscuits per man each day. A few tins of butter and condensed milk were also set apart to assist the gruel. For those unwilling or unable to follow us to the plantains we could do nothing. What might sustain a small garrison of thirteen men for many days would not save the lives of fifty when they were already so far gone, that only an abundance of digestive plantain flour could possibly save them.