[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

RECRUITING FOR NATIVES 77

village fires rose out of the bush at a distance. Two
ragged natives were loafing on the beach, and I
engaged one of them for the next day, to guide me to
some villages. Bourbaki and Macao marched gaily
off, as they were to spend the night in Macao’s
village.

Next morning, while being pulled ashore for my
excursion inland, I saw Macao on the beach, crying,
waving and behaving like a madman. He called
out that Bourbaki was dead, and that we must come
to the village. I took him into the boat and we
returned to the cutter. Macao was trembling all
over, uttering wild curses, sighing and sobbing like
a child. Between the fingers of his left hand he
frantically grasped his cartridges, and nervously kept
hold of his old rifle. We could not get much out of
him; all we could make out was that Bourbaki had
been shot towards morning and that he himself had
run away. We guessed that Bourbaki must have
committed some misdemeanour; as there was a
possibility of his still being alive, we decided to go
and look for him; for satisfaction it was idle to hope.

‘ According to Macao the village was quite near,
so we took our rifles, armed the boys, and in ten
minutes we were ashore. The youngest, a fourteen—
year-old boy, was left in the whale-boat, so as to be
ready to pick us up in case of need. His elder
‘ brother, a tall, stout fellow, also preferred to stay in
the boat; we left him behind, and this left five of us
for the expedition. Macao showed us the way, and
as We followed him we watched right and left for a