Men and women, empires and cities,
thrones, principalities, and powers, mountains, rivers, and unfathomed
seas, worlds, spaces, and universes, all have their day, and
all must go. In this ruined and forgotten place the moralist
may behold a symbol of the universal destiny. For this system
of ours allows no room for standing still -- nothing can loiter
on the road and check the progress of things upwards towards
Life, or the rush of things downwards towards Death. The stern
policeman Fate moves us and them on, on, uphill and downhill
and across the level; there is no resting-place for the weary
feet, till at last the abyss swallows us, and from the shores
of the Transitory we are hurled into the sea of the Eternal.

At Charra we had a violent quarrel with the headman of the bearers
we had hired to go as far as this, and who now wished to extort
large extra payment from us. In the result he threatened to
set the Masai -- about whom more anon -- on to us. That night
he, with all our hired bearers, ran away, stealing most of the
goods which had been entrusted to them to carry. Luckily, however,
they had not happened to steal our rifles, ammunition, and personal
effects; not because of any delicacy of feeling on their part,
but owing to the fact that they chanced to be in the charge of
the five Wakwafis. After that, it was clear to us that we had
had enough of caravans and of bearers. Indeed, we had not much
left for a caravan to carry. And yet, how were we to get on?

It was Good who solved the question. 'Here is water,' he said,
pointing to the Tana River; 'and yesterday I saw a party of natives
hunting hippopotami in canoes. I understand that Mr Mackenzie's
mission station is on the Tana River. Why not get into canoes
and paddle up to it?'

This brilliant suggestion was, needless to say, received with
acclamation; and I instantly set to work to buy suitable canoes
from the surrounding natives. I succeeded after a delay of three
days in obtaining two large ones, each hollowed out of a single
log of some light wood, and capable of holding six people and
baggage. For these two canoes we had to pay nearly all our
remaining cloth, and also many other articles.

On the day following our purchase of the two canoes we effected
a start. In the first canoe were Good, Sir Henry, and three
of our Wakwafi followers; in the second myself, Umslopogaas,
and the other two Wakwafis. As our course lay upstream, we had