ngs were
needless, and that at a stream they soon could refill the bags, emptied
the water on the ground.

The tortures that followed this wanton waste were terrible. Five of
the boys died, and after several days, when Burnham found water in
abundance, the tongues of the others were so swollen that their jaws
could not meet.

On this trip Burnham passed through a region ravaged by the "sleeping
sickness," where his nostrils were never free from the stench of dead
bodies, where in some of the villages, as he expressed it, "the hyenas
were mangy with overeating, and the buzzards so gorged they could
not move out of our way." From this expedition he brought back many
ornaments of gold manufactured before the Christian era, and made
several valuable maps of hitherto uncharted regions. It was in
recognition of the information gathered by him on this trip that he was
elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

He returned to Rhodesia in time to take part in the second Matabele
rebellion. This was in 1896. By now Burnham was a very prominent
member of the "vortrekers" and pioneers at Buluwayo, and Sir Frederick
Carrington, who was in command of the forces, attached him to his staff.
This second outbreak was a more serious uprising than the one of 1893,
and as it was evident the forces of the Chartered Company could not
handle it, imperial troops were sent to assist them. But with even their
aid the war dragged on until it threatened to last to the rainy season,
when the troops must have gone into winter quarters. Had they done so,
the cost of keeping them would have fallen on the Chartered Company,
already a sufferer in pocket from the ravages of the rinderpest and the
expenses of the investigation which followed the Jameson raid.

Accordingly, Carrington looked about for some measure by which he could
bring the war to an immediate end.

It was suggested to him by a young Colonial, named Armstrong, the
Commissioner of the district, that this could be done by destroying
the "god," or high priest, Umlimo, who was the chief inspiration of the
rebellion.

This high priest had incited the rebels to a general massacre of women
and children, and had given them confidence by promising to strike the
white soldiers blind and to turn their bullets into water. Armstrong
had discovered the secret hiding-place of Umlimo, and Carrington ordered
Burnham to penetrate the enemy's lines, find the god, capture him, and
if that we