Page:Dick Sands the Boy Captain.djvu/307

 ROUGH TRAVELLING. 279 — _ ■ _ . . In order not to lose sîght of the watercourse, it was necessary to eut a way right through the underwood ; pro- gress was consequently very slow ; and a lîttle over a mile was ail that was accomplîshed in about three hôurs. Foot- paths had evîdently once existed, but they had ail become what the natives term " dead," that is, they had become entircly overgrown with brushwood artd brambles. The negroes worked away with a will ; Hercules, in partîcular, who temporarily resîgned hîs charge to Nan, wîelded his axe with marvellous effect, ail the time giving vent to stentorian groans and grunts, and succeeded in openîng the woods before him as if they were being consumed by a devouring fire. Fortunately this heavy labour was not of very long duration. After about a mile, an openîng of moderate wîdth, con- vergîng towards the stream and following its bank, was dîscovered in the underwood, It was a passage formed by éléphants, which apparently by hundreds must be in the Iiabit of traversing this part of the forest The spongy soil, soaked by the downpour of the rainy season, was everywhere indented with the enormous impressions of their feet But it soon became évident that éléphants were not the only living créatures that had used this track. Human l)ones gnawed by beasts of prey, whole human skeletons, still wearing the iron fetters of slavery, everywhere strewed the ground. It was a scène only too common in Central jfrica, where like cattle driven to the slaughter, poor misérable men are dragged in caravans for hundreds of Aveary miles, to perîsh on the road in countless numbers beneath the trader's lash,- to succumb to the mingled horrors of fatigue, privation, and disease, or, if provisions fail, to be butchered, without pity or remorse, by sword and gun. That slave-caravans had passed that way was too obvious to permit a doubt. For at least a mile, at almost every step Dîck came in contact with the scattered bones ; whîle cvcr and agaîn huge goat suckers, disturbed by the approach