Birds -- Tanzania; World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Tanzania
The following day, though we started at 3 a.m., the column had only got
forward about eight miles when halt was called in the evening. Heavy
bush had been encountered and was responsible for our slow progress, for
laboriously a roadway had to be cut before the column could pass onwards.
After camp was established, working parties went out ahead to continue
hacking a clear way onward. About midnight we loaded our transport
up, and moved out on the march about 3 a.m. We trekked all day slowly
forward, and did not camp until after dark. It was a long, hard day,
and everyone is feeling the pinch of meagre rations and want of sleep.
The trail, being obstructed by heavy bush, continued bad, until in the
afternoon the column emerged into an open grass-grown valley and made
headway thenceforward smoothly and rapidly. To-day we have passed well
beyond, and outflanked, Lembeni, on the railway—the point at which the
German forces congregated on retiring from Kahe. Apparently the enemy
have cleared.
The following day, the 26th of May, the column did not trek until 1 p.m.,
so that all, thank God, had the opportunity of securing a complete
night’s sleep. Much refreshed and more cheerful was the column that
marched out to-day. Late in the evening we camped near the Pangani River,
about opposite Same Station, which lay away to the east of us on the
railway. The weather continues rainless, and very hot.
_27th May._—Trekked all day—a hot and wearisome march. The country we
passed through was level and open, and we pushed on rapidly. The enemy
are, apparently, fleeing far, for no resistance has been encountered, and
our pace is accordingly as fast as man and beast can stand. Last night,
ten Askaris and one white were captured in a patrol encounter.
_28th May._—This Sunday morning we were astir at 3 a.m. and trekked until
the late afternoon. The pace, and the heat, and the lack of water between
camps are beginning to wear down the endurance of man and animal. The
men were very tired, and cheerless, when they reached camp to-day; they
had been loaded with equipment and on their feet for thirteen hours, and
were almost past exerting themselves to cook food and look after their
odd accoutrements. The oxen and mules, too, were about “all in” ere they
reached the end of to-day’s trek, and the poor brutes, who must needs
endure all in dumb suffering, get little enough care when the men who
look after them are so very tired out at the end of such a day as this.
Still passing through good game country. One herd of buffalo and many
zebra were seen to-day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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