On this morning little Saburi walked into camp quite unconcerned, and fresh as from a happy outing. “Why Saburi! where have you been?” “I lost my way while picking berries, and I wandered about, and near night I came to a track. I saw the marks of the axes, and I said--Lo! this is our road, and I followed it thinking I was coming to camp. But, instead of that, I saw only a big river. It was the Ihuru! Then I found a big hollow tree, and I went into it and slept; and then I came back along the road, and so and so, until I walked in here. That is all.” We mustered every soul alive in the camp on the morning of the 15th. Sadi, the Manyuema headman, reported fourteen of his people unable to travel; Kibbobora reported his sick brother as being the only person of his party too sick to move; Fundi had a wife and a little boy too weak for the journey. The Expedition was obliged to leave 26. 43 persons verging on dissolution unless food could be procured within twenty-four hours. Assuming a cheery tone, though my heart was well-nigh breaking, I told them to be of good courage, that I was going to hunt up the absentees, who no doubt were gorging themselves; most likely I should find them on the road, in which case they would have to run all the way. “Meantime, pray for my success. God is the only one who can help you!” [Sidenote: 1888. Dec. 15. Starvation Camp.] We set out 1 P.M. on our return journey towards Ngwetza, thirty-five miles distant, with sixty-five men and boys and twelve women. We travelled until night, and then threw ourselves on the ground, scattered about in groups, or singly, each under his own clump of bush, silent and sad, and communing with his own thoughts. Vain was it for me to seek for that sleep which is the “balm of hurt minds.” Too many memories crowded about me; too many dying forms haunted me in the darkness; my lively fancies were too distorted by dread, which painted them with dismal colours; the stark forms lying in links along the path, which we had seen that afternoon in our tramp, were things too solemn for sudden oblivion. The stars could not be seen to seek comfort in their twinkling; the poor hearts around me were too heavy to utter naught but groans of despair; the fires were not lit, for there was no food to cook--my grief was great. Out of the pall-black darkness came out the eerie shapes that haunt the fever-land, that jibe and mock the lonely man, and weave figures of flame, and draw fiery forms in the mantle of the night; and whispers breathed through the heavy air of graves and worms, and forgetfulness; and a demon hinted in the dazed brain that ‘twere better to rest than to think with a sickening heart; and the sough of the wind through the crowns of the thick-black bush seemed to sigh and moan “Lost! lost! lost! Thy labour and grief are in vain. Comfortless days upon days; brave lives are sobbing their last; man after man roll down to the death, to mildew and rot, and thou wilt be left alone!”