We arose and stretched our stiff and frozen limbs, and calling up the few men who, huddled to the leeward of the animals, resembled so many corpses under their scanty linen cloths, we started for our camp at Mathara, which, having struck the right path, we reached in an hour. George had not yet risen, but, hearing our arrival, wrapped himself in a blanket and came out of his tent. I was very disagreeably surprised at his appearance. He was quite yellow and very thin and haggard, the effect of a severe attack of fever, which, coupled with anxiety on our account and differences with the Wa’Mathara in camp, had given him a very bad time indeed. He looked more like a ghost than a living being, but “all’s well that ends well,” and our arrival safe and sound contributed in no small degree to his speedy recovery. The Wa’Mathara, it appeared, had again been up to their old trick of surrounding the camp with armed men, and on one occasion they had actually attacked some of our camp followers while on their way to the stream for water. In fact, George was compelled to get up from his bed, where he lay racked with fever, and, seizing his rifle, sally forth accompanied by four or five men in order to drive off the enemy, who, however, fled at his approach without further hostilities. We now commenced preparations for our move northward to the Waso Nyiro River, selecting what trade goods and cattle we should require, intending to leave the balance with N’Dominuki. Food had also to be bought and packed into loads, as, after leaving Mathara, there were no other cultivated districts in the direction we intended to travel, and we should have to depend for sustenance entirely upon the food we were able to carry with us, and on any game we might be able to shoot. An inventory of the contents of our food-boxes showed that there was no reserve salt, and beyond an ounce or two in use, there was absolutely none in the safari. I mentioned the disconcerting fact to El Hakim, but he consoled me with the assurance that we should certainly be able to obtain salt at a crater, marked N’gomba on the map, a little to the south of the Waso Nyiro and due north of the Jombeni Mountains. Our supply of English flour was also finished, and we were then living on the native M’wele and Metama. In the afternoon I took a rifle, and, leaving camp, struck in a northerly direction in search of game. Crossing the thorn forest, I came out on to a gravelly highland, covered with thorn scrub, and here and there isolated Morio trees. Underfoot a few small aloes with red flowers grew in the patches of earth between the blocks of white quartz plentifully bestrewn everywhere.