It was by no means a pleasant experience, trotting across those plains in the pitchy blackness, with the grass up to my waist, and huge boulders scattered about ready and willing to trip me up. I got very heated and quite unreasonably angry, and expressed my feelings to Jumbi very freely. I was in the midst of a violent diatribe against all natives generally, and Swahili porters in particular, which I must admit he bore with commendable patience, when the earth gave way beneath me, and I was precipitated down some apparently frightful abyss, landing in a heap at the bottom, with all the breath knocked out of my body. I laid there for a little while, and endeavoured to collect my scattered faculties. Soon I stood up, and struck a match, and discovered that I had fallen into an old game-pit, about 8 feet deep. It was shaped like a cone, with a small opening at the top, similar to the old-fashioned _oubliette_. I looked at the floor, and shuddered when I realized what a narrow squeak I might have had; for on the centre of the floor were the mouldering remains of a pointed stake, which had been originally fixed upright in the earth floor on the place where I had fallen. “Is Bwana (master) hurt?” said the voice of Jumbi from somewhere in the black darkness above. I replied that I was not hurt, but that I could not get out without assistance; whereupon Jumbi lowered his rifle, and, to the accompaniment of a vast amount of scrambling and kicking, hauled me bodily out. We were by this time very near to the men for whom we were searching, as we could hear their voices raised in argument about the path. We stopped and called to them, and presently they joined us, and we all set off together to join my main party. We reached it without further mishap, and resumed our interrupted march. It was very dark indeed. I could not see my hand when I held it a couple of feet from my face. One of the men happening to remark that he had been over the path some years before, I immediately placed him in the van as guide, threatening him with all sorts of pains and penalties if he did not land us at our destination some time before midnight. I was particularly anxious to rejoin George, as I had the tents, blankets, and food, and he would have a very uninteresting time without me. We marched, therefore, with renewed vigour, as our impromptu guide stated that he thought one more hour’s march would do the business. It didn’t, though. For two solid hours we groped blindly through belts of forest, across open spaces, and up and down wooded ravines, until somewhere about eleven p.m., when we reached a very large and terribly steep ravine, thickly clothed with trees, creepers, and dense undergrowth. We could hear the rushing noise of a considerable volume of water at the bottom, and in the darkness it sounded very, very far down.