He now struck north to avoid the Chiboque, and made for the Portuguese settlement of Cassange through dense forest and constant wet. Here another fever fit came on, so violent that "I could scarcely, after some hours' trial, get a lunar observation in which I could repose confidence. Those who know the difficulties of making observations and committing them all to paper will sympathize with me in this and many similar instances." At this crisis, when the goal was all but at hand, obstacles multiplied till it seemed that after all it would never be reached. First his riding ox, Sindbad--a beast "blessed with a most intractable temper," and a habit of bolting into the bush to get his rider combed off by a climber, and then kicking at him--achieved a triumph in his weak state, "when the bridle broke, and down I came backward on the crown of my head, receiving as I fell a kick on the thigh. This last attack of fever reduced me almost to a skeleton. The blanket which I used as a saddle, being pretty constantly wet, caused extensive abrasion of the skin, which was continually healing and getting sore again." Then the guides missed their way and led them back into Chiboque territory, where the demands of the chief of every village for "a man, an ox, or a tusk," for permission to pass, began again. Worst of all, signs of mutiny began to show themselves among the Batoka men of his party, who threatened to turn back. He appeased them by giving them a tired ox to be killed at the Sunday's halt. "Having thus, as I thought, silenced their murmurs, I sank into a state of torpor, and was oblivious of all their noise. On Sunday the mutineers were making a terrible din in preparing the skin. I requested them twice to be more quiet as the noise pained me, but, as they paid no attention to this civil request, I put out my head and, repeating it, was answered by an impudent laugh. Knowing that discipline would be at an end if this mutiny was not quelled, and that our lives depended on vigorously upholding authority, I seized a double-barrelled pistol and darted out with such a savage aspect as to put them to precipitate flight. They gave no further trouble." Every night now they had to build a stockade, and by day to march in a compact body, knowing the forest to be full of enemies dogging their path, for now they had nothing to give as presents, the men having even divested themselves of all their copper ornaments to appease the Chiboque harpies. "Nothing, however, disturbed us, and for my part I was too ill to care much whether we were attacked or not." They struggled on, the Chiboque natives, now joined by bodies of traders, opposing at every ford, Livingstone no longer wondering why expeditions from the interior failed to reach the coast. "Some of my men proposed to return home, and the prospect of being obliged to turn back from the threshold of the Portuguese settlements distressed me exceedingly.