a spare one. Infadoos was delighted,
foreseeing that the possession of such an article would increase his
prestige enormously, and after several vain attempts he actually
succeeded in screwing it into his own eye. Anything more incongruous
than the old warrior looked with an eye-glass I never saw. Eye-glasses
do not go well with leopard-skin cloaks and black ostrich plumes.

Then, after seeing that our guides were well laden with water and
provisions, and having received a thundering farewell salute from the
Buffaloes, we wrung Infadoos by the hand, and began our downward climb.
A very arduous business it proved to be, but somehow that evening we
found ourselves at the bottom without accident.

"Do you know," said Sir Henry that night, as we sat by our fire and
gazed up at the beetling cliffs above us, "I think that there are worse
places than Kukuanaland in the world, and that I have known unhappier
times than the last month or two, though I have never spent such queer
ones. Eh! you fellows?"

"I almost wish I were back," said Good, with a sigh.

As for myself, I reflected that all's well that ends well; but in the
course of a long life of shaves, I never had such shaves as those which
I had recently experienced. The thought of that battle makes me feel
cold all over, and as for our experience in the treasure chamber--!

Next morning we started on a toilsome trudge across the desert, having
with us a good supply of water carried by our five guides, and camped
that night in the open, marching again at dawn on the morrow.

By noon of the third day's journey we could see the trees of the oasis
of which the guides spoke, and within an hour of sundown we were
walking once more upon grass and listening to the sound of running
water.

[1] This extraordinary and negative way of showing intense respect is
by no means unknown among African people, and the result is that if, as
is usual, the name in question has a significance, the meaning must be
expressed by an idiom or other word. In this way a memory is preserved
for generations, or until the new word utterly supplants the old.

[2] It often puzzled all of us to understand how it was possible that
Ignosi's mother, bearing the child with her, should have survived the
dangers of her journey across the mountains and the desert, dangers
which so nearly proved fatal to ourselves. It has since occurred to me,
and I give the idea to the reader for what it is worth, that