dry again
before work could be resumed. Then we found we had to sink much deeper
than we expected in order to reach a solid foundation indeed, the
sinking went on and on, until I began to despair of finding one and was
about to resort to pile-driving, when at last, to my relief, we struck
solid rock on which the huge foundation-stones could be laid with
perfect safety.

Another great difficulty with which we had to contend was the absence
of suitable stone in the neighbourhood. It was not that there was none
to be found, for the whole district abounds in rock, but that it was so
intensely hard as to be almost impossible to work, and a bridge built
of it would have been very costly. I spent many a weary day trudging
through the thorny wilderness vainly searching for suitable material,
and was beginning to think that we should be forced to use iron columns
for the piers, when one day I stumbled quite by accident on the very
thing. Brock and I were out "pot-hunting," and hearing some guinea-fowl
cackling among the bushes, I made a circuit half round them so that
Brock, on getting in his shot, should drive them over in my direction.
I eventually got into position on the edge of a deep ravine and knelt
on one knee, crouching down among the ferns. There I had scarcely time
to load when over flew a bird, which I missed badly; and I did not have
another chance, for Brock had got to work, and being a first-rate shot
had quickly bagged a brace. Meanwhile I felt the ground very hard under
my knee, and on examination found that the bank of the ravine was
formed of stone, which extended for some distance, and which was
exactly the kind of material for which I had long been fruitlessly
searching. I was greatly delighted with my unexpected discovery, though
at first I had grave misgivings about the distance to be traversed and
the difficulty of transporting the stone across the intervening
country. Indeed, I found in the end that the only way of getting the
material to the place where it was wanted was by laying down a tram
line right along the ravine, throwing a temporary bridge across the
Tsavo, following the stream down and re-crossing it again close to the
site of the permanent bridge. Accordingly, I set men to work at once to
cut down the jungle and prepare a road on which to lay the double
trolley line. One morning when they were thus engaged, a little paa--a
kind of very small antelope--sprang out and found itself suddenly in