The natives did not stand for further question, but vanished kindly, and left their treasures of food. We received as our share two pounds of Indian corn and half-a-pound of beans. Altogether about twenty-five pounds of corn were discovered, which was distributed among the people. In the afternoon I received a note from Mr. Jephson, who was behind with the boat: "For God's sake, if you can get any food at the village send us some." We despatched answer to Jephson to hunt up the wounded elephant that I had shot, and which had taken refuge on an island near him, and in reply to his anxious letter, a small handful of corn. On the 9th of October 100 men volunteered to go across river and explore inland from the north bank with a resolute intention not to return without food of some kind. I went up river with the boat's crew, and Stairs down river to strike inland by a little track in the hope that it might lead to some village; those who were too dispirited to go far wandered southward through the woods to search for wild fruit and forest beans. This last article was about four times the size of a large garden bean, encased in a brown leathery rind. At first we had contented ourselves with merely skinning it and boiling it, but this produced sickness of the stomach. An old woman captured on the island was seen to prepare a dish of these beans by skinning them and afterwards cleaning the inner covering, and finally scraping them as we would nutmegs. Out of this floury substance she made some patties for her captor, who shouted in ecstasies that they were good. Whereupon everybody bestirred themselves to collect the beans, which were fairly plentiful. Tempted by a "lady finger" cake of this article that was brought to me, I ventured to try it, and found it sufficiently filling, and about as palatable as a mess of acorns. Indeed, the flavour strongly reminded me of the acorn. The fungi were of several varieties, some pure and perfect mushrooms, others were of a less harmless kind; but surely the gods protected the miserable human beings condemned to live on such things. Grubs were collected, also slugs from the trees, caterpillars, and white ants--these served for meat. The _mabengu_ (nux vomica) furnished the dessert, with _fenessi_ or a species of bastard jack fruit. The following day some of the foragers from across the river returned bringing nothing. They had discovered such emptiness on the north bank as we had found on the south bank; but "Inshallah!" they said, "we shall find food either to-morrow or the next day."