ch
a storm, for I could not see where I was going; the wind roared and
whistled through the wood, and I was half dead with fatigue and hunger.

I therefore crept into a small thicket close to this pool, where I was
out of reach of the storm, and making a pillow of my boots and cap,
slept soundly and heavily. Since May 1 I had had no proper sleep. When I
woke it was already dark, and the storm still howled through the wood. I
was now so tortured by hunger that I began to eat grass, flowers, and
reed shoots. There were numbers of young frogs in the pool. They were
bitter, but I pinched their necks and swallowed them whole. After eating
my supper I collected a store of branches to keep up a fire during the
night, and then I crept into my lair in the thicket and gazed into the
fire for a couple of hours while the storm raged outside. Then I went to
sleep again.

At dawn on May 7 I crept out of the thicket and decided to march
southwards until I met with human beings. This time I took water with me
in my boots, but after a few hours my feet were so sore and blistered
that I had to bind them up in long strips of my shirt. At length to my
delight I found a sheepfold on the bank; it had evidently not been used
for a long time, but it showed that shepherds must live in the woods
somewhere.

At noon heat and fatigue drove me into the wood again, where I ate a
breakfast of grass and reeds. After a rest I wandered on again hour
after hour towards the south, but at eight o'clock I could go no
farther, and before it became quite dark I tried to make myself
comfortable on a small space sheltered by poplars and bushes, and there
as usual I lighted my camp fire. I had nothing else to do but lie and
stare into the flames and listen to the curious mournful sounds in the
wood. Sometimes I heard tapping steps and dry twigs cracking. It might
be tigers, but I trusted that they would not venture to attack me just
when I had been saved in such a remarkable manner.

I rose on May 8 while it was still dark, and sought for a path in the
wood, but I had not gone far before the trees became scattered and came
to an end, and the dismal yellow desert lay before me. I knew it only
too well, and made haste back to the river-bed. I rested during the hot
hours of the day in the shadow of a poplar and then set off again. I now
followed the right bank of the river, and shortly before sunset stopped
dead before a remarkable sight--the fresh track of two