“To-morrow is in the hands of God. I will live in hopes that I shall find something.”
This youth, he was only nineteen, had carried sixty pound of cartridges in the meantime, and would carry it again to-morrow, and the next day, until he dropped, and measured his length with eyes upturned to the dark cope of leaves above, to be left there to mildew and rot; for out of nothing, nothing can be extracted to feed hungry men. He was only a solitary instance of over 400 people.
We reached a Manyuema Camp, and Uledi recognised it as being a place where he had halted during a forage tour to the west of the Ihuru, while he was waiting for Messrs. Jephson and Nelson at Ipoto, and the advance column was journeying to Ibwiri in November, 1887.
On the 7th a halt was ordered, that a column might be sent under Uledi to search the clearing of Andari, six miles N.N.W. of the camp, but over a hundred were so weak that they were unable to go, whereupon the messes were ordered to bring their pots up, and three handfuls of flour were placed in each to make gruel with, that they might have strength to reach the plantation.
On the 8th, about 200 remained silent in camp awaiting the foragers. In the afternoon, perceiving that it was too long a fast to wait for them we served out more plantain flour.
On the 9th, the foragers had not arrived. Two men had died in camp. One reeled from the effects of a poisonous fungus, as they came to get another ration of flour for their gruel; their steps were more feeble; the bones of the sternum were fearfully apparent. Three days would find us all perished, but we were hopeful that every minute we should hear the murmur of the returning column.
On the morning of the 10th, anxious for the European provisions which we were carrying for the officers at Fort Bodo, I had them examined, and discovered to my consternation that fifty-seven tins of meat, teas, coffees, milks, were short--had been eaten by the Manyuema. If a look had potency sufficient to blast them, they would have speedily been reduced to ashes. “Dear me, how could the tins have vanished?” asked the chief Sadi. Ah, how? But the provision boxes were taken from his party, and Winchester and Maxim ammunition cases were served instead to them as freight.