The country was now getting very nasty. We could see low ranges of steep hills ahead that promised to be very inconvenient. At dusk we ascended the outlying spurs, finding it very hard work, and soon after we camped for the night. I shot a congoni during the afternoon, which kept us in fresh meat for a day or two. That the estimate we had formed of the natural difficulties to be encountered was a correct one, we had many opportunities of verifying during the next two days. It was a perfectly horrible piece of country. It seemed to be a collection of rocky hills thrown down just anyhow, without the slightest regard for order. Long coarse grass and rank vegetation did their very best to impede our progress. We were retarded every half mile or so by steep descents, down which we toiled slowly and painfully, only to find a roaring rushing torrent at the bottom, that needed the most careful negotiation. Our poor donkeys suffered very much by the constant loading and unloading of their burdens, rendered necessary in order to cross some particularly obnoxious ravine, while the men’s patience was severely tried. In the early morning it was still worse, as the dense undergrowth was then soaked through with the heavy dew, which descended on us in icy showers as we forced our way through, thus adding to our other miseries. There was no game to speak of. I shot one solitary congoni at our first camp in this uninhabited wilderness, and on the same day we inadvertently walked on to a sleeping rhinoceros, which livened things up a little. El Hakim was riding at the head of the safari, and George, on the other mule, was close behind him. I was walking a few yards behind George. Suddenly I saw El Hakim stiffen in his seat and kick his feet free of the stirrup-irons; a fraction of a second later he was out of the saddle and behind a bush, while George emulated his example with a promptitude that could only have been rendered possible by the most urgent necessity, George being, as a rule, extremely deliberate in his movements, as befits a heavy man. At the same instant, with a rush and a snort, a large black rhinoceros galloped blindly at us. I took up an unobtrusive position behind an adjacent tree, with as little delay as possible consistent with my dignity, and the rhinoceros rushed past and disappeared. It appeared annoyed at being disturbed.