“_June 20._—As we began to lay brushwood along the tracks this morning, by which we are to haul our canoes from the Pocock Basin past the Zinga point into the basin below, the people stirred about so languidly and sullenly that I asked what was the matter. One fellow, remarkable for nothing but his great size and strength, turned round and said sharply, ‘We are tired, and that’s what’s the matter,’ which opinion one-third did not hesitate to confirm. Such a spirit being most serious in these days of scant food and hard toil—men, like beasts of prey, being governed by the stomach—I invited the people together to rehearse their grievances and to describe their wrongs. They could say nothing, except that they were tired and were not going to work more. Death was in the river; a wearisome repetition of frightful labour waited for them each day on the rocks; their stomachs were hungry, they had no strength. Said I, ‘And I have none, my friends, I assure you. I am as hungry as any of you. I could get meat to make me strong, but it would be robbing you. I am so tired and sorry that I could lie down smiling and die. My white brother, who was lost the other day, is far happier than I. If you all leave me, I am safe, and there is no responsibility on me. I have my boat, and it is in the river. The current is swift, the fall is only a few yards off. My knife can cut the rope, and I shall then go to sleep for ever. There are the beads; take them, do what you will. While you stay with me, I follow this river until I come to the point where it is known. If you don’t stay with me, I still will cling to the river, and will die in it.’ I walked away from them. One man, Safeni, the coxswain at Bumbireh, on being asked by a disaffected body of men what was best to be done, said, ‘Let us pack up and be gone. We shall die anyhow, whether we stay here or whether we travel.’ They were not long in following his counsel, and filed up the steep ascent to the table-land, thirty-one in number. One of the tent-boys came to announce the fact. On ascertaining that the infection was not general, I then resolved that they should not endanger their own lives or the lives of the faithful, and called Kachéché and Manwa Sera to follow and plead with them. They overtook them five miles from here, but only received a determined refusal to return, and persisted in continuing their journey. Meanwhile the faithful are at work. “_June 21._—Despatched Kachéché and Manwa Sera again early this morning to cut off the fugitives, to inform the chiefs in advance that my people were not to be permitted to pass them, but, if they persisted in going beyond them, to lay hands on them and bind them until I could arrive on the scene. The chiefs seconded me so well that they beat their war-drum, and the mock excitement was so great that the mutineers were halted, and I learn by my two men that they already regret having left their camp.