en left in charge of the
expedition--a man of extreme kindness, but an incessant talker. He spoke
so loudly, repeating the same things over and over again, that in my weak
state, and accustomed as we were to the deathly silence of the forest, it
tired me inexpressibly. His conversation consisted entirely of accusing
everybody he knew of being robbers and assassins, and in long
descriptions, with numberless figures, to show how he had been robbed
of small sums of money by various people he had met in his lifetime.

I presented him with L10 sterling, hoping that he would keep quiet, as
that seemed to be the entire sum of which he had been robbed by his
relatives and friends; also because on seeing our wretched condition, he
had presented me with an enormous pair of shoes, about six sizes too
large for me. When I walked in them, especially up and down the steep
banks, I lost now one shoe, now the other, so big were they. But I was
grateful to him, as he would not take payment for them, and they saved my
feet to a certain extent--when I could keep them on--from the thorns,
which were numerous in that region.

The prolonged immersion in the water the day before, while we were
navigating the raft, and the subsequent rest, had caused my feet to swell
enormously, my ankles being about three times their normal size, so
swollen were they. I experienced an unbearable pain in my heart, with
continuous heart-burning and sudden throbbings, succeeded by spells of
exhaustion. Giddiness in my head was constant, and I was so weak that it
was all I could do to move. Even the exertion of shifting from one side
to the other of the boat on which I was travelling was enough to make me
almost collapse with fatigue.

We travelled great distances, going on all day and the greater part of
the night, with relays of men, on September 22nd and 23rd.

The Secundury was a stream with an average width of 60 m. and in many
places quite deep. It had a great many little springs and streamlets
flowing into it between steep cuts in its high embankments, which were
of alluvial formation mingled with decayed vegetation. The banks almost
all along were from 40 to 50 ft. high. We came across a large tributary
on the right side of the river. It was evidently the stream to which we
had first come on our disastrous march across the forest, and which I had
mistaken for the Secundury. Beyond this river we came across some small
rapids, of no importance and quite