." I returned to the camp, and
taking with me a party of the most intelligent tribesmen, set off after
the wild camels. When we had been several days continuously tracking we
came up with the beasts. There were four of them altogether, and right
wild and vicious-looking brutes they were. They marched close together
in a band, and never parted company. The moment I and my men tried to
separate and head them off, the leader would swoop down upon us with open
mouth, and the result of this appalling apparition was that my black
assistants fled precipitately. Alone I followed the camels for several
days in the hope of being able ultimately to drive them into some ravine,
where I thought I might possibly bring them into a state of subjection by
systematic starvation. But it was a vain effort on my part. They kept
in the track of water-holes, and wandered on from one to the other at
considerable speed.

At length I abandoned hope altogether, though not without a feeling of
sore disappointment, as I watched the curious, ungainly creatures
disappearing over the ridge of a sand-hill. Of course I took good care
not to tell any of the natives the real reason of my desire to possess a
camel,--though I did try to explain to them some of the uses to which
people in other parts of the world put these wonderful animals.

I never lost an opportunity of leaving records wherever I could. As I
have said before, I was constantly blazing trees and even making drawings
upon them; and I would have left records in cairns had I been able to
make any writing material. Talking about this, I was for a long time
possessed with the desire to make myself a kind of paper, and I
frequently experimented with the fibres of a certain kind of tree. This
material I reduced to a pulp, and then endeavoured to roll into sheets.
Here again, however, I had to confess failure. I found the ordinary
sheets of bark much more suitable for my purpose.

Pens I had in thousands from the quills of the wild swan and goose; and I
made ink from the juice of a certain dark-coloured berry, mixed with
soot, which I collected on the bottom of my gold cooking-kettle. I also
thought it advisable to make myself plates from which to eat my food--not
because of any fastidiousness on my part, but from that ever-present
desire to impress the blacks, which was now my strongest instinct. In
the course of my ramblings in the northern regions I came across
quantities of sil