We marched out of the gate, company after company in single file. Each with its flag, its trumpeter or drummer, each with its detail of supernumeraries, with fifty picked men as advance guard to handle the bill-hook and axe, to cut saplings, "blaze," or peel a portion of the bark of a tree a hand's-breadth, to sever the leaves and slash at the rattan, to remove all obtrusive branches that might interfere with the free passage of the hundreds of loaded porters, to cut trees to lay across streams for their passage, to form zeribas or bomas of bush and branch around the hutted camp at the end of the day's travel. The advance guard are to find a path, or, if none can be found, to choose the thinnest portions of the jungle and tunnel through without delay, for it is most fatiguing to stand in a heated atmosphere with a weighty load on the head. If no thinner jungle can be found, then through anything, however impenetrable it may appear; they must be brisk--"chap-chap"--as we say, or an ominous murmur will rise from the impatient carriers behind. They must be clever and intelligent in wood-craft; a greenhorn, or as we call him "goee-goee," must drop his bill-hook, and take the bale or box. Three hundred weary fellows are not to be trifled with, they must be brave also--quick to repel assault--arrows are poisonous, spears are deadly--their eyes must be quick to search the gloom and shade, with sense alert to recognition, and ready to act on the moment. Dawdlers and goee-goees are unbearable; they must be young, lithe, springy--my 300 behind me have no regard for the ancient or the corpulent--they would be smothered with chaff and suffocated with banter. Scores of voices would cry out, "Wherein lies this fellow's merit? Is it all in his stomach? Nay, it is in his wooden back--tut--his head is too big for a scout. He has clearly been used to hoeing. What does the field hand want on the Continent? You may see he is only a Banian slave! Nay, he is only a Consul's freed man! Bosh! he is a mission boy." Their bitter tongues pierce like swords through the armour of stupidity, and the bill-hooks with trenchant edges are wielded most manfully, and the bright keen axes flash and sever the saplings, or slice a broad strip of bark from a tree, and the bush is pierced, and the jungle gapes open, and fast on their heels continuously close presses the mile-long caravan. This is to be the order, and this the method of the march, and I have stood observing the files pass by until the last of the rear guard is out of the camp, and the Major and Jameson and the garrison next crowd out to exchange the farewell. "Now, Major, my dear fellow, we are in for it. Neck or nothing! Remember your promise and we shall meet before many months." "I vow to goodness. I shall be after you sharp. Let me once get those fellows from Bolobo and nothing shall stop me." "Well, then, God bless you--keep a stout heart--and Jameson--old man--the same to you."