The night passed peacefully, though I thought it advisable to put on a double sentry, and on the morrow, weary of swamps, I struck east towards the great burnt plain, and then marched due north, trusting to luck for water. I found numerous holes where the water had not quite dried up, and met many isolated groups of desponding natives spearing a loathsome four-legged reptile or fish, some of which, for lack of more delicate fare, I had to eat; and after marching for about fifteen miles, I again came on extensive swamps which stretched far to the east, and seemed likely to give me much trouble, if not to effectually prevent me going further. Being totally ignorant of the country, and without means of asking the simplest question of the natives, I had been fearing all along that I should arrive at some impassable obstacle. I was very anxious on this point, as it would have been impossible to return. Arriving unexpectedly on the edge of the first pool, I found it one mass of small duck, with a spur-winged goose standing up in the middle. I fired at him with my .303, and he dropped, the bullet striking him with most unusual noise. My boy, wading in, returned not only with the goose, but also two duck. The bullet had struck the goose’s back, removing his intestines and half his breast, then cut off the head and broken the wing of No. 1 duck, and neatly cleaned No. 2. It was a Dum-dum, and must have exploded like a shell. I have often noticed that the bullets with the most penetration, such as the solid, nickel-coated, and the Dum-dum, shatter small animals and birds more effectually than the more expansive bullets, such as the Jeffrey and the lead-nose. This stroke of luck provided a very welcome change to my mournful diet of doubtful fish, occasional milk flavoured with cow’s urine, which is used for washing the dairy utensils, and a strange cheese of my own manufacture. We camped on the top of a layer of burnt vegetation overlying a morass, and my tent nearly disappeared in the night, while I was seized with furious bouts of vomiting, caused by the quantity of salt in the water. To make matters more cheerful, I discovered that my last two tins of tobacco were mouldy, and I only wished that I could enjoy it as much as the mosquitoes appeared to do, who settled in clouds on the rim of my pipe waiting their turn for a space on my epidermis. Several either climbed inside or bit me through a pair of ammunition boots. I had a severe cold and a stiff arm; my cook boy had dysentery; one of the Congo soldiers had a dreadful foot, which rendered walking a terrible torture; and the two gentlemen with cracked skulls were semi-delirious, so that, on the whole, we were a jovial party, our joviality being materially increased by the impossibility of making a fire, owing to lack of fuel.