n came the descent, which, if not so difficult a matter
as the getting up, was still sufficiently break-neck, and took us till
sunset. That night, however, we camped in safety upon the mighty slopes
that rolled away to the marsh beneath.

On the following morning, about eleven o'clock, began our dreary journey
across those awful seas of swamps which I have already described.

For three whole days, through stench and mire, and the all-prevailing
flavour of fear, did our bearers struggle along, till at length we came
to open rolling ground quite uncultivated, and mostly treeless, but
covered with game of all sorts, which lies beyond that most desolate,
and without guides utterly impracticable, district. And here on the
following morning we bade farewell, not without some regret, to old
Billali, who stroked his white beard and solemnly blessed us.

"Farewell, my son the Baboon," he said, "and farewell to thee too, oh
Lion. I can do no more to help you. But if ever ye come to your country,
be advised, and venture no more into lands that ye know not, lest ye
come back no more, but leave your white bones to mark the limit of your
journeyings. Farewell once more; often shall I think of you, nor wilt
thou forget me, my Baboon, for though thy face is ugly thy heart is
true." And then he turned and went, and with him went the tall and
sullen-looking bearers, and that was the last that we saw of the
Amahagger. We watched them winding away with the empty litters like a
procession bearing dead men from a battle, till the mists from the marsh
gathered round them and hid them, and then, left utterly desolate in the
vast wilderness, we turned and gazed round us and at each other.

Three weeks or so before four men had entered the marshes of Kor, and
now two of us were dead, and the other two had gone through adventures
and experiences so strange and terrible that death himself hath not a
more fearful countenance. Three weeks--and only three weeks! Truly time
should be measured by events, and not by the lapse of hours. It seemed
like thirty years since we saw the last of our whale-boat.

"We must strike out for the Zambesi, Leo," I said, "but God knows if we
shall ever get there."

Leo nodded. He had become very silent of late, and we started with
nothing but the clothes we stood in, a compass, our revolvers and
express rifles, and about two hundred rounds of ammunition, and so ended
the history of our visit to the ancient ruins of