hen out of the
scanty materials, all of which had been deemed necessary a short time
since, the greater part were to be left behind. They were still busy,
when a body of men gliding out from among the huts by twos and by
threes, assembled at the entrance, one of their number signing to its
tenants to follow. Carrying their rifles in the hollow of the arm,
their pistols at their belts, they cast one look round the interior of
the hut which had served them so long as a home, and stepped out into
the night.

The moon was just rising over the mountain range, the night was quite
still, save when from time to time the cry of the jackal could be heard
from the plain. In the native kraal all slept, and the party,
consisting of fifteen men armed with assegais, and commanded by the same
brave who had conducted them from their camp at Gorongoza, moved
silently away the moment the white men joined them. Avoiding the kraal,
they shaped their course to the north, travelling as swiftly as they
could through a country densely covered with forest. Game seemed to
grow more scarce as they neared the end of their journey; and, except
for necessary purposes, it was little sought after, the object of all
being identical, namely, to strike the Zambesi as soon as possible.
This they at length did, though the forest growth impeded their progress
so much, that it was only on the evening of the ninth day after leaving
the country of the Amatonga that they reached its banks. Under the
shade of the high hill of Baramuana a small tent was pitched, not larger
than that used by the French soldier, and known by the name of tente
d'abri. A fire burned fiercely in front of it, and close by ran the
Zambesi, a fine broad stream flowing towards the sea, between banks
covered with reeds of luxuriant growth. Beyond the river a level plain,
broken by forest-land, and in the distance the blue outline of a high
mountain range.

Near the fire were seated the two Europeans, and in a semicircle round
them the fifteen Amatonga warriors who had been their guides. Further
down the stream, at a bend of the river, the walls of a brick building
were visible, some ten miles away.

A perfect jungle of forest swept up almost to the spot where the group
were seated, the tamarind and acacia trees growing to the river bank,
covered with creeping plants, such as the convolvulus, the jasmine, the
deadly nightshade, all festooned from tree to tree, while the wild
gua