Next day there wasn’t an elephant in sight, but we could hear the natives banging away up-river, and as the elephant near camp began to smell we trekked up the valley. Here the downtrodden grass showed that the big herd had moved off south. Having exceeded our time-limit, we decided to return to Fort Gerry and start for the north. Taking all the ivory into Fort Gerry for registration, I left Sharp on the road with a few boys to hunt, intending to make the necessary arrangements at the station, and then to send out the boys to him for the march to Kampala; but the evening of my return was celebrated by a pombe revel amongst my boys, and when I went down to see what the noise was about, I was attacked by twenty or thirty of them with spears, and was obliged to fire my revolver at the ringleader. This scared them, and the whole hundred broke out of camp, scattering the Soudanese guards, who were supposed to keep them in order. Next day all the boys came in a body and demanded to be sent home; so, to avoid trouble, we rounded them by strategy into a cattle-kraal, and put a strong guard over them; and after giving them posho (cloth to buy food), and obtaining a guard from Kasagama to see them out of the country, I packed them off to Katwe. Sharp arrived next day, having done the fifty miles in two marches. Ten of our boys were in chain-gang for behaving badly during our absence, and these and Sharp’s lot I persuaded to go with me to Wadelai, and thence by high-road to Kampala, and by Victoria Nyanza back to Tabora and Ujiji. Out of our fourteen calves two alone had survived, and we had been obliged to kill two cows, as they could not travel further. Six cows we exchanged with Kasagama for a tusk of 138 lbs., and six others I sold for 180 r., giving the other cow and calf to Mr. Bagge. During our absence elephant-hunting, four of King Kasagama’s cows died, so I rescinded the bargain, and gave two of my tusks and a present of cloth for the big one, and handed the surviving cattle over to Mr. Bagge. Curiously enough, the six I sold to the Soudanese Effendi were still well, while Mr. Bagge’s cow and calf had both died. Too good food and too much time to eat it, after a march of two hundred and fifty miles, had evidently overpowered them. At this stage of my journey, Mr. Sharp, to my great regret, was forced by the ties of urgent business to return home. The Nile was such an uncertain quantity that he was unable to risk the possibility of being buried in the wilds for another two years. He therefore marched through Toro and Uganda to the Mombasa rail-head, and took passage to England _via_ the Red Sea. *CHAPTER XV.* *TORO TO MBOGA.*