an quickly across,
sinking merely to the ankles, although beneath the tough vegetation
there was deep water.

It was equally impossible to ride or to be carried over this treacherous
surface; thus I led the way, and begged Mrs. Baker to follow me on
foot as quickly as possible, precisely in my track. The river was about
eighty yards wide, and I had scarcely completed a fourth of the distance
and looked back to see if my wife followed close to me, when I was
horrified to see her standing in one spot and sinking gradually through
the weeds, while her face was distorted and perfectly purple. Almost as
soon as I perceived her she fell as though shot dead. In an instant I
was by her side, and with the assistance of eight or ten of my men, who
were fortunately close to me, I dragged her like a corpse through the
yielding vegetation; and up to our waists we scrambled across to the
other side, just keeping her head above the water. To have carried her
would have been impossible, as we should all have sunk together through
the weeds. I laid her under a tree and bathed her head and face
with water, as for the moment I thought she had fainted; but she lay
perfectly insensible, as though dead, with teeth and hands firmly
clinched, and her eyes open but fixed. It was a coup de soleil--a
sun-stroke.

Many of the porters had gone on ahead with the baggage, and I started
off a man in haste to recall an angarep upon which to carry her and also
for a bag with a change of clothes, as we had dragged her through the
river. It was in vain that I rubbed her heart and the black women rubbed
her feet to restore animation. At length the litter came, and after
changing her clothes she was carried mournfully forward as a corpse.
Constantly we had to halt and support her head, as a painful rattling
in the throat betokened suffocation. At length we reached a village, and
halted for the night.

I laid her carefully in a miserable hut, and watched beside her. I
opened her clinched teeth with a small wooden wedge and inserted a wet
rag, upon which I dropped water to moisten her tongue, which was dry as
fur. The unfeeling brutes that composed the native escort were yelling
and dancing as though all were well, and I ordered their chief at once
to return with them to Kamrasi, as I would travel with them no longer.
At first they refused to return, until at length I vowed that I would
fire into them should they accompany us on the following morning. Day