Mackenzie's hospitable roof that night -- a prospect
that did not tend to enliven us. Toil as we would, we could
not make more than an average of a mile an hour, and at five
o'clock in the afternoon (by which time we were all utterly worn
out) we reckoned that we were still quite ten miles below the
station. This being so, we set to work to make the best arrangements
we could for the night. After our recent experience, we simply
did not dare to land, more especially as the banks of the Tana
were clothed with dense bush that would have given cover to five
thousand Masai, and at first I thought that we were going to
have another night of it in the canoes. Fortunately, however,
we espied a little rocky islet, not more than fifteen miles or
so square, situated nearly in the middle of the river. For this
we paddled, and, making fast the canoes, landed and made ourselves
as comfortable as circumstances would permit, which was very
uncomfortable indeed. As for the weather, it continued to be
simply vile, the rain coming down in sheets till we were chilled
to the marrow, and utterly preventing us from lighting a fire.
There was, however, one consoling circumstance about this rain;
our Askari declared that nothing would induce the Masai to make
an attack in it, as they intensely disliked moving about in the
wet, perhaps, as Good suggested, because they hate the idea of
washing.
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