This was only the beginning of trouble. It rained nearly every night, and every night some of the sheep died. The streams were much swollen and flowed so swiftly that it was only with the utmost difficulty that the men prevented the animals from being washed away. One river took two hours to cross, each individual animal having to be passed over from hand to hand. At another the current was so rapid that it seemed hopeless to attempt to cross it at all, until John, with a good deal of risk, managed to swim over slantwise with a rope, which he fastened to a tree on the further bank. With the help of this, every man and beast was got across safely, but with such an expenditure of labour that all were thoroughly exhausted. That night, to add to John’s misfortunes, his donkey was killed by a hyena, and he was in a state of miserable depression when he started to resume his journey. The one satisfactory feature of the march was that the natives met _en route_ had been friendly. The food was exhausted when the safari had been ten days on the road, but they had no difficulty in purchasing muhindi or cassava at the villages. John’s rifle provided all necessary meat, and at one stream he shot a crocodile, the flesh of which was highly prized by his men. But the very friendliness of the people became a source of anxiety. They offered their services in helping to drive the animals, and at the end of a day when they had apparently been very useful, John found that six sheep had mysteriously disappeared. He blamed Wasama for not warning him of the thievish propensities of the volunteer drovers, much to the surprise of the Masai, who said he thought everybody knew that a man would take what he could get if he had the chance. After that, John refused all assistance, however generously it was pressed upon him, and kept a sharp eye on the natives who hung about the flanks of the safari. With all his vigilance he lost a dozen more sheep and a fine bull calf by theft, and he began despairingly to wonder whether he would have any animals left by the time he arrived in Nairobi.