And the next day our march underneath the eternal shades was through just such a land, and on the morning of the 1st of November we emerged into the clearing of Andaki, to refresh our souls with the promised fruit of its groves. The plantains were not very large, but they were mature and full, and before an hour had elapsed, the wooden grates were up, and the fruit lay in heaps of slices on the bars over the fire. The word was passed that the first and second day of the month should be employed in preparing as much provisions as every man could carry. We were in N. Lat. 1° 16½′. Kilonga-Longa’s station was in 1° 6′, and Fort Bodo in 1° 20′, so that our course was good.
On the second some scouts hunting up the various tracks extending eastward came across two women, one of whom said she knew of a great village to the north where there was food. Another said that Andari lay E.N.E., four days’ march, where there was such a stock of food that Andaki was a mere handful compared with it.
Soon after leaving Andaki, and crossing a broad ridge, we came upon a vast abandoned clearing. Probably a year had elapsed since the people had fled, and their settlements had been consumed with fire, for the banana plants were choked by the voracious undergrowth and wild plants, and the elephants had trampled through and through, and sported for months among the wasted groves, and over the crushed Musa plants, through phrynia flourishing two fathoms deep, and where the stumps of cut trees had sprouted and grown until their tufted tops were joined to one another in one great thick carpet of bush. Through this we carved our way with brandished billhooks and cutlasses; the native women had lost the track, and were bewildered by the wildly luxuriant shrubbery, under which we sweated in the damp hot-house heat, and ploughed our way through the deep green sea, until after ten hours we came to a babbling rillet, and must perforce camp from sheer exhaustion, though we had made but five miles.
On the morning of the fourth we resumed the task, to slash, cut, creep and crawl, bore through, in and out, to clamber over logs, tread carefully over gaping rifts in the reeking compost, bend under logs, to tunnel away with might and main, to drive through--a hungry column of men was behind, a wilderness before us--to crash headlong through the plants, veer to the left, and now to the right, to press on and on, to sharpen the weapons on the stones of the brook; to take a hasty drink to satisfy our thirst, and again to the work. Cleave away merrily, boys; sever those creepers; cut those saplings down! No way now? then widen that game hole in the bush clump! Come, strike with billhook and sword, axe and cutlass! We must not die like fools in this demon world! This way and that, through and through, until after sixteen hours we had cut a crooked channel through the awful waste, and stood once more under the lordly crowns of the primeval forest.