of both crews, the capsized canoe was after some time set afloat again, and a few trifling articles were gathered up, but the bulk of my baggage was irrecoverably lost.
Thus ended all my schemes; thus vanished all my visions for the future.
No one can conceive the keenness of my disappointment. The preparations of seven previous years had proved fruitless. Here I was, not only suffering in body from the increasing pains of fever, but dejected in spirit at the conviction that I must forthwith abandon my enterprise.
An hour after that deplorable passage of the Mutshila Aumsinga, which never can be effaced from my memory, we landed on the right-hand bank of the Zambesi, just below a Mabunda village called Sioma. My servants, who had continued following on foot, were ferried across, and we made our encampment before it grew dark. We were rather surprised to be told by the residents that the neighbourhood was infested with lions, and that the village was night after night ravaged by their attacks; and, for my own part, I was inclined to believe that the stories were made up as a pretext to induce us to move on. In exchange for some beads I obtained a quantity of kaffir-corn beer, which I distributed to the boatmen in acknowledgment of the exertions they had made in my service. Finding that I was not intimidated by the representations they made, and pleased moreover with the beads I had spent among them, the natives became more hospitable, and gave us their advice and assistance in collecting the roofs of seven deserted huts, which we placed closely side by side in a semicircle, resting one edge on the ground,
