Piles half broken.
Two women, tied to the same fork, precipitated into the water.
One was carrying her little child.
The waters are disturbed and become stained with blood.
Crocodiles glide between the parts of the bridge. There is danger of stepping into their open mouths.
April 28th.—Crossed a forest of bauhiniers. Trees of straight timber—those which furnish the iron wood for the Portuguese.
Heavy rain.
Earth wet.
March extremely painful.
Perceived, toward the center of the convoy, poor Nan, carrying a little negro child in her arms. She drags herself along with difficulty.
The slave chained with her limps, and the blood flows from her shoulder, torn by lashes from the whip.
In the evening camped under an enormous baobab with white flowers and a light green foliage.
During the night roars of lions and leopards.
Shots fired by one of the natives at a panther.
What has become of Hercules?
April 29th and 30th.—First colds of what they call the African winter.
Dew very abundant.
End of the rainy season with the month of April; it commences with the month of November.
Plains still largely inundated.
East winds which check perspiration and renders one more liable to take the marsh fevers.
No trace of Mrs. Weldon, nor of Mr. Benedict.
Where would they take them, if not to Kazounde?
They must have followed the road of the caravan and preceded us.
I am eaten up with anxiety.
Little Jack must be seized again with the fever in this unhealthy region.
But does he still live?
From May 1st to May 6th.—Crossed, with several halting-places, long plains, which evaporation has not been able to dry up.
Water everywhere up to the waist. Myriads of leeches adhering to the skin.
We must march for all that.
On some elevations that emerge are lotus and papyrus.
At the bottom, under the water, other plants, with large cabbage leaves, on which the feet slip, which occasions numerous falls.
In these waters, considerable quantities of little fish of the silurus species. The natives catch them by billions in wickers and sell them to the caravans.
Impossible to find a place to camp for the night.
We see no limit to the inundated plain.
We must march in the dark.
To-morrow many slaves will be missing from the convoy.
What misery!
When one falls, why get up again? A few moments more under these waters, and all would be finished.
The overseer's stick would not reach you in the darkness.
Yes, but Mrs. Weldon and her son!
I have not the right to abandon them.
I shall resist to the end.
It is my duty.
Dreadful cries are heard in the night.
Twenty soldiers have torn some branches from resinous trees whose branches were above water.
Livid lights in the darkness.
This is the cause of the cries I heard.
An attack of crocodiles; twelve or fifteen of those monsters have thrown themselves in the darkness on the flank of the caravan.
Women and children have been seized and carried away by the crocodiles to their "pasture lands"—so Livingstone calls those deep holes where this amphibious animal deposits its prey, after having drowned it, for it only eats it when it has reached a certain degree of decomposition.
I have been rudely grazed by the scales of one of these crocodiles.