d
me to regret the question.

"Plenty of those slaves cannibal men, Baas. Think they eat the Arabs and
like them very much," he said with a yawn, then went to sleep again.

I did not continue the conversation.

When at length we made a start on the following morning the sun was high
over us. Indeed, there was a great deal to do. The guns and ammunition
of the dead Arabs had to be collected; the ivory, of which they carried
a good store, must be buried, for to take it with us was impossible, and
the loads apportioned.[*] Also it was necessary to make litters for the
wounded, and to stir up the slaves from their debauch, into the nature
of which I made no further inquiries, was no easy task. On mustering
them I found that a good number had vanished during the night, where
to I do not know. Still a mob of well over two hundred people, a
considerable portion of whom were women and children, remained, whose
one idea seemed to be to accompany us wherever we might wander. So with
this miscellaneous following at length we started.

[*] To my sorrow we never saw this ivory again.--A.Q.

To describe our adventures during the next month would be too long if
not impossible, for to tell the truth, after the lapse of so many years,
these have become somewhat entangled in my mind. Our great difficulty
was to feed such a multitude, for the store of rice and grain, upon
which we were quite unable to keep a strict supervision, they soon
devoured. Fortunately the country through which we passed, at this time
of the year (the end of the wet season) was full of game, of which,
travelling as we did very slowly, we were able to shoot a great deal.
But this game killing, delightful as it may be to the sportsman,
soon palled on us as a business. To say nothing of the expenditure of
ammunition, it meant incessant work.

Against this the Zulu hunters soon began to murmur, for, as Stephen and
I could rarely leave the camp, the burden of it fell on them. Ultimately
I hit upon this scheme. Picking out thirty or forty of the likeliest men
among the slaves, I served out to each of them ammunition and one of the
Arab guns, in the use of which we drilled them as best we could. Then
I told them that they must provide themselves and their companions with
meat. Of course accidents happened. One man was accidentally shot and
three others were killed by a cow elephant and a wounded buffalo. But in
the end they learned to handle their rifles sufficientl