"Massa Jack," said Makarooroo, entering the hut and interrupting our
conversation at this point, "de chief hims tell to me for to tell to you
dat w'en you's be fit for go-hid agin hims gib you cottle for sit upon."

"Cottle, Mak! what's _cottle_?" inquired Jack, with a puzzled look.

"Ho, massa, you know bery well; jist cottle--hoxes, you know."

"Indeed, I don't know," replied Jack, still more puzzled.

"I've no doubt," interposed Peterkin, "that he means cuttle, which is
the short name for cuttle-fish, which, in such an inland place as this,
must of course be hoaxes! But what do you mean, Mak? Describe the
thing to us."

Mak scratched his woolly pate, as if he were quite unable to explain
himself.

"O massas, you be most stoopid dis yer day. Cottle not a ting; hims am
a beast, wid two horn an' one tail. Dere," said he, pointing with
animation to a herd of cattle that grazed near our hut, "dat's cottle,
or hoxes."

We all laughed at this proposal.

"What!" cried Jack, "does he mean us to ride upon `hoxes' as if they
were horses?"

"Yis, massa, hims say dat. Hims hear long ago ob one missionary as hab
do dat; so de chief he tink it bery good idea, an' hims try too, an'
like it bery much; only hims fell off ebery tree steps an' a'most broke
all de bones in him's body down to powder. But hims git up agin and
fell hoff agin. Oh, hims like it bery much!"

"If we follow the chief's example," said I, laughing, "we shall scarcely
be in a fit state to hunt gorillas at the end of our journey; but now I
come to think of it, the plan seems to me not a bad one. You know a
great part of our journey now lies over a comparatively desert country,
where we shall be none the worse of a ride now and then on ox-back to
relieve our limbs. I think the proposal merits consideration."

"Right, Ralph," said Jack.--"Go, Mak, and tell his majesty, or
chieftainship, or his royal highness, with my compliments, that I am
much obliged by the offer, and will consider it. Also give him this
plug of tobacco; and see you don't curtail its dimensions before it
leaves your hand, you rascal."

Our guide grinned as he left the hut to execute his mission, and we
turned to converse on this new plan, which, the more we thought of it,
seemed the more to grow in our estimation as most feasible.

"Now, lads, leave me," said Jack, with a sigh, after we had chatted for
more than an hour. "If I am to go through all that our worthy host
seem