e seen. I try to read--I cannot yet. At
last I have read. The letter is from Hercules's hand. It is written on
a bit of paper, in pencil. Here is what it says:

"Mrs. Weldon was taken away with little Jack in a _kitanda_.
Harris and Negoro accompany it. They precede the caravan by three
or four marches, with Cousin Benedict. I have not been able to
communicate with her. I have found Dingo, who must have been
wounded by a shot, but cured. Good hope, Mr. Dick. I only think of
you all, and I fled to be more useful to you. HERCULES."

Ah! Mrs. Weldon and her son are living. God be praised! They have not
to suffer the fatigues of these rude halting-places. A _kitanda_--it
is a kind of litter of dry grass, suspended to a long bamboo, that two
men carry on the shoulder. A stuff curtain covers it over. Mrs. Weldon
and her little Jack are in that _kitanda_. What does Harris and Negoro
want to do with them? Those wretches are evidently going to Kazounde.
Yes, yes, I shall find them again. Ah! in all this misery it is good
news, it is joy that Dingo has brought me!

_From May 11th to 15th_.--The caravan continues its march. The
prisoners drag themselves along more and more painfully. The majority
have marks of blood under their feet. I calculate that it will take
ten days more to reach Kazounde. How many will have ceased to suffer
before then? But I--I must arrive there, I shall arrive there.

It is atrocious! There are, in the convoy, unfortunate ones whose
bodies are only wounds. The cords that bind them enter into the flesh.

Since yesterday a mother carries in her arms her little infant, dead
from hunger. She will not separate from it.

Our route is strewn with dead bodies. The smallpox rages with new
violence.

We have just passed near a tree. To this tree slaves were attached by
the neck. They were left there to die of hunger.

_From May 16th to 24th_.--I am almost exhausted, but I have no right
to give up. The rains have entirely ceased. We have days of "hard
marching." That is what the traders call the "tirikesa," or afternoon
march. We must go faster, and the ground rises in rather steep
ascents.

We pass through high shrubs of a very tough kind. They are the
"nyassi," the branches of which tear the skin off my face, whose sharp
seeds penetrate to my skin, under my dilapidated clothes. My strong
boots have fortunately kept good.

The agents have commenced to abandon the slaves too sick