I should parenthetically remark that these East Coast porters, like most Africans, are utterly without prevision, and so long as they can satisfy the desire of the moment care little to provide for future wants as yet unfelt. On long journeys, where there is no water on the road, you will experience the greater difficulty in preventing your men dropping and dying of thirst, because, although they may have started with an ample supply of drinking-water in their gourds—quite sufficient for the time required if carefully measured out—yet, in spite of warning and prohibition, they will squander the precious fluid, quench every slight attack of thirst, and consume it all in a few hours; then, during the long waterless tramp which ensues, they will wring your heart with the sight of their sufferings, and stagger along the dusty path with dry, swollen tongues, parched lips, and bloodshot eyes. So it was on this terrible journey to Maungu. Towards midday, when the noon blazed in fierce white heat, when the sky was so hot and scintillating that it was devoid of all colour and shone like a silver shield, when the short, scrubby mimosas gave no sheltering shade under their thorny boughs, when escape from the overpowering dazzling sunshine was impossible, and the baked and heated soil seemed to burn the soles of my boots, and made the men who were still plodding on pick up their feet like the proverbial dancing bear—then I began to doubt whether my party would reach Maungu intact, for now it was useless to battle with the sullen sluggishness of many of the porters, who preferred lying in the road exposed to hard words and blows rather than toiling patiently and uninterruptedly on in the direction of water and permissible repose. So in sheer despair I left them to lie wherever they threw themselves, accepting in lieu of any other consolation their assurance that they would follow on in the cooler hours of the day. Now, even, it became with myself a desperate rush to reach the water-supply before I should suffer painfully from thirst. An examination of my own store of the precious liquid had revealed the appalling fact that not one drop remained, and the man who had been carrying my bottles and calabash confessed to having assisted in its disappearance. This was a serious matter; thumping the man did nothing towards allaying my increasing thirst. All that could be done was to journey on patiently but unremittingly in the direction of Maungu. There was no time to prepare food in the middle of the day: I pulled out a tin of hare soup from my provision box, opened it, and drank the undiluted liquor. The unfinished bottle of champagne was divided and consumed by myself and my patient Tamil servant, lending a factitious strength to our tired, overheated bodies, and so far buoying up our spirits that we strode on past man after man until we were well ahead of the caravan.