What between illness and wild beasts his chances
did not look very good, but it was the best we could do for him. This
incident exemplifies well the cruelty of this singular people. They
probably abandoned the old man because his groans annoyed them, or
because one of them wanted to ride in his place on the donkey cart.[12]
We struck off as early as possible through the thorn scrub on a compass
bearing that we hoped would bring us to a reported swamp at the head of
the Swanee River. The Swanee River was one of the sources of the Tsavo.
Of course this was guesswork. We did not know certainly the location of
the swamp, its distance from us, nor what lay between us and it.
However, we loaded all our transportable vessels with water, and set
forth.
The scrub was all alike; sometimes thinner, sometimes thicker. We
marched by compass until we had raised a conical hill above the horizon,
and then we bore just to the left of that. The surface of the ground was
cut by thousands of game tracks. They were all very old, however, made
after a rain; and it was evident the game herds venture into this
country only when it contains rainwater. After two hours, however, we
did see one solitary hartebeeste, whom we greeted as an old friend in
desolation. Shortly afterwards we ran across one oribi, which I shot for
our own table.
At the end of two hours we sat down. The safari of twenty men was a very
miscellaneous lot, consisting of the rag-tag-and-bobtail of the bazaars
picked up in a hurry.
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