y cooked
the night before, and has only to be warmed. We continue the march after
breakfast, rest a little in the middle of the day, and break off early in
the afternoon. We average from two to two-and-a-half miles an hour in a
straight line, or as the crow flies, and seldom have more than five or
six hours a day of actual travel. This in a hot climate is as much as a
man can accomplish without being oppressed; and we always tried to make
our progress more a pleasure than a toil. To hurry over the ground,
abuse, and look ferocious at one's native companions, merely for the
foolish vanity of boasting how quickly a distance was accomplished, is a
combination of silliness with absurdity quite odious; while kindly
consideration for the feelings of even blacks, the pleasure of observing
scenery and everything new as one moves on at an ordinary pace, and the
participation in the most delicious rest with our fellows, render
travelling delightful. Though not given to over haste, we were a little
surprised to find that we could tire our men out; and even the headman,
who carried but little more than we did, and never, as we often had to
do, hunted in the afternoon, was no better than his comrades. Our
experience tends to prove that the European constitution has a power of
endurance, even in the tropics, greater than that of the hardiest of the
meat-eating Africans.

After pitching our camp, one or two of us usually go off to hunt, more as
a matter of necessity than of pleasure, for the men, as well as
ourselves, must have meat. We prefer to take a man with us to carry home
the game, or lead the others to where it lies; but as they frequently
grumble and complain of being tired, we do not particularly object to
going alone, except that it involves the extra labour of our making a
second trip to show the men where the animal that has been shot is to be
found. When it is a couple of miles off it is rather fatiguing to have
to go twice; more especially on the days when it is solely to supply
their wants that, instead of resting ourselves, we go at all. Like those
who perform benevolent deeds at home, the tired hunter, though trying
hard to live in charity with all men, is strongly tempted to give it up
by bringing only sufficient meat for the three whites and leaving the
rest; thus sending the "idle ungrateful poor" supperless to bed. And yet
it is only by continuance in well-doing, even to the length of what the
worldly-w