Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/183

 White men shriveled under the heat, and natives ran away from the work. So we contracted with the Chinese Six Companies for three thousand coolies. Work? They were very devils for work! We needed devils; we were moving red hot stones in hell. Chinamen died like flies; sun-stroke, fever, reptiles and insects. We had agreed to ship every Chinese body home for burial. They did their own embalming, stowed the bodies in coffins, and we stacked the coffins on the river bank, where a boat came twice a week. More Chinamen died; others worked madly, ahead of death. We were succeeding, we were building; death did not matter—until three Chinamen went fishing. Never before had any coolie taken a holiday. Two miles below our landing place a little river tumbled into the big one. There amongst the rocks they found the mangled bodies of their friends—some of their friends. As for the others—well, the crocodiles were said to be very, very fat. Those three coolies rushed back to camp and spread the news. Every coolie stopped. That work is stopped to this day. Nobody will ever complete it. They held a meeting. We tried to pacify them. The frenzied demons would listen to nothing. At daylight three thousand yellow men, without food, guides, or arms, marched out of camp, headed toward the sunrise. That mob started from middle