eluctant gaze.
There was little we could do for them. Our own supply of medicines and
bandages was almost too small for our own needs to begin with. By the
time we passed three villages we scarcely had enough lint and liniment
left to take care of my wound; but even that scant supply we cut in
half for a particularly bad case.

"Don't the Germans do anything for you?" we demanded, over and over
again.

The answer was always the same.

"Germani mbaia!" (The Germans are bad!)

They were lifeless--listless--tamed until neither ambition nor courage
was left. When their cattle had brought forth young and it looked as
if there might be some profit at last, the Masai came and raided them,
taking away all but the very old ones and the youngest calves. The
Germans, they said, taxed them and took their weapons away, but gave
them no protection.

At one place we passed a rifle, lying all rusted by the track. At the
next village we asked about it. They told us that a German native
soldier had deserted six months before and had thrown his rifle away.
Since that day no one had dared touch it, and they begged us to send
back and lay it where we found it, lest the Germans come and punish
them for touching it. So we did that, to oblige them, and they were
grateful to the extent of offering us one of their only two male sheep.

I forget now for how many days we traveled across that sad and
saddening land, Fred always cheerful in spite of everything, Will more
angry at each village with its dirt and sores, Brown moaning always
about his lovely herd of cows, and I groaning oftener than not.

My leg grew no better, what with jolting and our ignorance of how to
treat it. Sometimes, in efforts to obtain relief, I borrowed a cow at
one village and rode it to the next; but a cow is a poor mount and
takes as a rule unkindly to the business. Now and then I tried to walk
for a while, on crutches that Fred made for me; but most of the time I
was carried in a blanket that grew hotter and more comfortless as day
dragged after day.

At last, however, we topped a low rise and saw Muanza lying on the
lake-shore, with the great island of Ukereweto to northward in the
distance. From where we first glimpsed it it was a tidy, tree-shaded,
pleasant-looking place, with a square fort, and a big house for the
commandant on a rise overlooking the town.

"Now we'll wire Monty at last!" said Fred.

"Now we'll shave and wash and write letters