Taking some of the water from the stream with us, we returned to camp and gave all the men a good drink, and early next morning I left the wagons, and took all the donkeys to have a good drink and a good feed as well, as there was plenty of good grazing in the neighbourhood of the stream. The animals appeared to be thoroughly knocked up, and far from well, which I put down to their having been so long without water, though I was by no means sure that they had not been tampered with by the Masai drivers. The Masai are blood drinkers, and when they have a chance will make an incision in the jugular vein of an animal and thus drink its blood, and I had little doubt that this was what they had been doing to my donkeys while I was away looking for the water.
I brought up the wagons, and camped by the stream throughout the next day, as I saw that there was a good crossing over the stream, and the country was simply full of game. What struck me as most remarkable here was the tameness of the zebra, who were mixed up among my donkeys, all quietly grazing together near the wagons.
The condition of the donkeys began to get worse, and one by one they began to fall sick and die. Then the boys began to desert, as is the habit of the nigger when things begin to go wrong, and each day saw me with one donkey and one boy less.
It was part of my contract that the loads should be delivered by a certain time, otherwise I had to pay a heavy penalty—about two rupees a load for every twenty-four hours after the time fixed—so, as I had only some twenty-five miles farther to go, I set to work to collect the loads, intending to complete the rest of the journey without the wagons, by taking the rice on the donkeys’ backs. By doing this I managed to get the journey completed and the loads delivered only a day or so after the proper time, but when I had finished the journey I found myself with just one donkey and three boys left!
It was impossible to take the wagons back without donkeys, so, taking the lid off one of the food boxes, I painted on it with wagon grease “Dead Donkey Camp,” and having stuck this up I left the wagons, and never saw them again, while with my three boys and my sole remaining donkey I started to trek back to Naivasha.