no lodging, after so hard a march; for here wereno trees, no, not a shrub near us; and, which was still more frightful,towards night we began to hear the wolves howl, the lions bellow, anda great many wild asses braying, and other ugly noises which we did notunderstand.
Upon this we reflected upon our indiscretion, that we had not, at least,brought poles or stakes in our hands, with which we might have, as itwere, palisadoed ourselves in for the night, and so we might have sleptsecure, whatever other inconveniences we suffered. However, we founda way at last to relieve ourselves a little; for first we set up thelances and bows we had, and endeavoured to bring the tops of them asnear to one another as we could, and so hung our coats on the top ofthem, which made us a kind of sorry tent. The leopard's skin, and a fewother skins we had put together, made us a tolerable covering, and thuswe laid down to sleep, and slept very heartily too, for the first night;setting, however, a good watch, being two of our own men with theirfuzes, whom we relieved in an hour at first, and two hours afterwards.And it was very well we did this, for they found the wilderness swarmedwith raging creatures of all kinds, some of which came directly up tothe very enclosure of our tent. But our sentinels were ordered not toalarm us with firing in the night, but to flash in the pan at them,which they did, and found it effectual, for the creatures went offalways as soon as they saw it, perhaps with some noise or howling, andpursued such other game as they were upon.
If we were tired with the day's travel, we were all as much tired withthe night's lodging. But our black prince told us in the morning hewould give us some counsel, and indeed it was very good counsel. He toldus we should be all killed if we went on this journey, and through thisdesert, without some covering for us at night; so he advised us to marchback again to a little river-side where we lay the night before, andstay there till we could make us houses, as he called them, to carrywith us to lodge in every night. As he began a little to understand ourspeech, and we very well to understand his signs, we easily knew what hemeant, and that we should there make mats (for we remembered that we sawa great deal of matting or bass there, that the natives make mats of)--Isay, that we should make large mats there for covering our huts or tentsto lodge in at night.
We all approved this advice, and immediately resolved to go back thatone day's journey, resolving, though we carried less provisions, wewould carry mats with us to cover us in the night. Some of the nimblestof us got back to the river with more ease than we had travelled it theday before; but, as we were not in haste, the rest made a halt, encampedanother night, and came to us the next day.
In our return of this day's journey, our men that made two days ofit met with a very surprising thing, that gave them some reason to becareful how they parted company again. The case was this:--The secondday in the morning, before they had gone half a mile, looking behindthem they saw a vast cloud of sand or dust rise in the air, as we seesometimes in the roads in summer when it is very dusty and a large droveof cattle are coming, only very much greater; and they could easilyperceive that it came after them; and it came on faster as they wentfrom it. The cloud of sand was so great that they could not see what itwas that raised it, and concluded that it was some army of enemiesthat pursued them; but then considering that they came from the vastuninhabited wilderness, they knew it was impossible any nation or peoplethat way should have intelligence of them or the way of their march;and therefore, if it was an army, it must be of such as they were,travelling that way by accident. On the other hand, as they knew thatthere were no horses in the country, and that they came on so fast, theyconcluded that it must be some vast collection of wild beasts, perhapsmaking to the hill country for food or water, and that they should beall devoured or trampled under foot by their multitude.
Upon this thought, they very prudently observed which way the cloudseemed to point, and they turned a little out of their way to the north,supposing it might pass by them. When they were about a quarter of amile, they halted to see what it might be. One of the negroes, a nimblerfellow than the rest, went back a little, and came in a few minutesrunning as fast as the heavy sands would allow, and by signs gave themto know that it was a great herd, or drove, or whatever it might becalled, of vast monstrous elephants.
As it was a sight our men had never seen, they were desirous to see it,and yet a little uneasy at the danger too; for though an elephant is aheavy unwieldy creature, yet in the deep sand, which is nothing at allto them, they marched at a great rate, and would soon have tired ourpeople, if they had had far to go, and had been pursued by them.
Our gunner was with them, and had a great mind to have gone close up toone of the outermost of them, and to have clapped his piece to hisear, and to have fired into him, because he had been told no shot wouldpenetrate them; but they all dissuaded him, lest upon the noise theyshould all turn upon and pursue us; so he was reasoned out of it, andlet them pass, which, in our people's circumstances, was certainly theright way.
They were between twenty and thirty in number, but prodigious greatones; and though they often showed our men that they saw them, yet theydid not turn out of their way, or take any other notice of them than, aswe might say, just to look at them. We that were before saw the cloud ofdust they raised, but we had thought it had been our own caravan, and sotook no notice; but as they bent their course one point of the compass,or thereabouts, to the southward of the east, and we went due east [?west], they passed by us at some little distance; so that we did not seethem, or know anything of them, till evening, when our men came to usand gave us this account of them. However, this was a useful experimentfor our future conduct in passing the desert, as you shall hear in itsplace.
We were now upon our work, and our black prince was head surveyor, forhe was an excellent mat-maker himself, and all his men understood it, sothat they soon made us near a hundred mats; and as every man, I mean ofthe negroes, carried one, it was no manner of load, and we did not carryan ounce of provisions the less. The greatest burthen was to carrysix long poles, besides some shorter stakes; but the negroes made anadvantage of that, for carrying them between two, they made the luggageof provisions which they had to carry so much the lighter, binding itupon two poles, and so made three couple of them. As soon as we sawthis, we made a little advantage of it too; for having three or fourbags, called bottles (I mean skins to carry water), more than the mencould carry, we got them filled, and carried them this way, which was aday's water and more, for our journey.
Having now ended our work, made our mats, and fully recruited our storesof all things necessary, and having made us abundance of small ropesof matting for ordinary use, as we might have occasion, we set forwardagain, having interrupted our journey eight days in all, upon thisaffair. To our great comfort, the night before we set out there fell avery violent shower of rain, the effects of which we found in the sand;though the heat of one day dried the surface as much as before, yet itwas harder at bottom, not so heavy, and was cooler to our feet, by whichmeans we marched, as we reckoned, about fourteen miles instead of seven,and with much more ease.
When we came to encamp, we had all things ready, for we had fitted ourtent, and set it up for trial, where we made it; so that, in less thanan hour, we had a large tent raised, with an inner and outer apartment,and two entrances. In one we lay ourselves, in the other our negroes,having light pleasant mats over us, and others at the same time underus. Also we had a little place without all for our buffaloes, for theydeserved our care, being very useful to us, besides carrying forage andwater for themselves. Their forage was a root, which our blackprince directed us to find, not much unlike a parsnip, very moist andnourishing, of which there was plenty wherever we came, this horriddesert excepted.
When we came the next morning to decamp, our negroes took down the tent,and pulled up the stakes; and all was in motion in as little time as itwas set up. In this posture we marched eight days, and yet could see noend, no change of our prospect, but all looking as wild and dismal asat the beginning. If there was any alteration, it was that the
sandwas nowhere so deep and heavy as it was the first three days. This wethought might be because, for six months of the year the winds blowingwest (as for the other six they blow constantly east), the sand wasdriven violently to the side of the desert where we set out, where themountains lying very high, the easterly monsoons, when they blew, hadnot the same power to drive it back again; and this was confirmed by ourfinding the like depth of sand on the farthest extent of the desert tothe west.
It was the ninth day of our travel in this wilderness, when we cameto the view of a great lake of water; and you may be sure this was aparticular satisfaction to us, because we had not water left for abovetwo or three days more, at our shortest allowance; I mean allowing waterfor our return, if we had been driven to the necessity of it. Our waterhad served us two days longer than expected, our buffaloes having found,for two or three days, a kind of herb like a broad flat thistle, thoughwithout any prickle, spreading