We found our raft waterlogged and almost entirely useless, but we determined to try what we could do with it. We had great difficulty in persuading the men to go into the water, but managed it at last, and got a rope across the river with which to haul the raft over. We put two loads on it, and though they were got safely across they were soaked through, and once or twice very nearly lost. When we tried to haul our raft back the rope parted, and the unholy contrivance we had spent so much time and labour upon drifted rapidly down-stream, and was lost to sight. We abandoned the idea of crossing by raft—especially as there was then no raft to play with—and so we prospected up the river-bank for some little distance, and eventually discovered a place that promised a better crossing than any we had previously seen. There were two or three small islands near the hither bank of the river, which narrowed it to more manageable proportions, and by lunch-time we had rigged the rope across the main channel. After lunch we all stripped, and prepared for an afternoon’s hard work; nor were we disappointed. The stream, breast-deep, was running like a mill-race. Its bed was composed of flat slabs of granite polished to the smoothness of glass by the constant water-friction. Strewn here and there were smooth water-worn boulders with deep holes between, which made the crossing both difficult and dangerous. By dint of half wading and half swimming, holding on to the rope for safety, we managed with incredible labour to get all the loads across without accident. Getting the mules and donkeys across was a still more difficult task. They absolutely refused to face the water, and had to be forced in. Once in, though, they did their best to get across. The mules and four of the donkeys succeeded after a severe struggle, but the other two donkeys were swept away down-stream. We were unwilling to lose them, so I swam down the river with them, trying to head them towards the opposite bank. I succeeded at last in forcing them under the bank a quarter of a mile or so lower down stream; but at that place it was perfectly perpendicular, and there we stood, the two donkeys and myself, up to our necks in water on a submerged ledge about two feet wide, on one side of us the swiftly rushing river, which none of us wished to face again, and on the other side a perfectly unclimbable bank, topped with dense jungle. I thought of crocodiles, as there were, and are, a great many in the Athi River, and I went cold all over, and wished most heartily that I was somewhere else. I shouted for the men, and presently heard their voices from the top of the bank overhead; they could not reach me, however, as the jungle was so thickly interlaced as to be impenetrable. They tried to cut a way down to me, but gave it up as impossible; besides, they could not have got the donkeys out that way, anyhow.