the supply of donkeys held by the Embe had been
exhausted, or they were unwilling to sell any more, none
had been brought for sale for the past two or three days.
Thirty-seven donkeys would suffice for a journey of
exploration similar to our recent journey from Hameye
to Lorian; but it was far from sufficient to enable our
entire caravan to advance into the desert; particularly
as we had been informed that starvation reigned over
the entire country lying between our position and the
country of the Reschatt. This was our route to the
north, at least the only one with which we were at that
time familiar, and with steady marching fifty days would
be required for its accomplishment. From George’s
account of trade in the Embe country it seemed improbable,
no matter how long the stay there, that we
should ever succeed in purchasing a sufficient number
of donkeys to enable the entire caravan to move. We
therefore decided to set out with but a small portion
of our men, and once more endeavour to find the Ren-
dile, and purchase from them beasts of burden; or, if
this failed, to move on to a tribe called Turcana, who
inhabited the country to the south of Lake Rudolph,
which had been visited by Lieutenant von Hohnel on
his former journey, where he had seen many donkeys
and not a few camels.
In order to guard against absolute failure, even
should we not succeed in getting beasts of burden
while on this journey, we decided to send our headman,
Hamidi, and six others to the coast, there to
procure as many donkeys as possible, and twenty or
thirty good men besides, to take the places of those
who had died or deserted. We knew that this step
was fraught with many dangers to the success of the
caravan; for it is a principle of African travel, when
once you have left the coast, to keep your back to it
until your journey has been accomplished and you are
E m b e G i r l c a r r y i n g W o o d
on your homeward way. But the loss of our beasts of
burden, and the number of deaths and desertions which
occurred in our caravan, had entirely upset our calculations,
and reduced our burden-bearing capacity to such
an extent that further advance into the interior with
our whole caravan would be impossible, unless we had