The long trail: A story of African adventure — Inside the Classic

They were marching wearily. Since early morning, almost without stopping, they had been trudging their toilsome way over parched and barren land, only once discovering a water-hole at which they were able to slake their burning thirst.

For the greater part of the day the sun had beat upon them fiercely; but the sky was now overclouded, and a keen north-east wind had sprung up--the harmattan of the desert--blowing full in their faces, stinging their skins and filling mouths and ears and nostrils with the particles of fine grey dust which it swept along in its desolating course.

The jaded carriers, who were wont to enliven the march with song and chatter, were now silent. The two Englishmen in advance, bending forward to keep the grit out of their eyes, tramped along, side by side, with an air of dejection and fatigue.

"We are down on our luck, old man," said Hugh Royce presently, turning his back upon the wind. "The village can't be far away, if Drysdale's map is correct; but we can't go on much farther without a long rest."

"It's rank bad luck, as you say," replied Tom Challis. "It's not as if we had been over-marching; we've really taken it pretty easy; but we didn't reckon with sickness. These Hausas look as strong as horses, but I doubt whether half of them will be able to lift their loads to-morrow."

"When we get to the village, we'll let them slack for a day or two, and dose them well. I'll tell John; it will encourage them to stick it a little longer."

He beckoned up a strapping negro, the head-man of the company, upon whom a former employer had bestowed the name John in place of his own--a succession of clicks and gurgles which white men found unpronounceable. Telling him the decision just come to, the leader of the expedition ordered him to acquaint the men with it, and urge them to persevere a little longer.

The weary, willing carriers perked up a little at the prospect of a holiday, and began to talk to one another of how much they would eat. It did not matter, they agreed, if they made themselves ill, for the little balls out of the white men's bottles would soon set them to rights again.

Hugh Royce was one of those hardy persons whom wealth does not spoil. Inheriting, at the age of twenty-three, a large fortune from an uncle, he resolved to realise his dearest ambition--to travel into some little-known region of the world, not for mere sport, but to study its animals and birds, and add something to the general stock of knowledge.

A chance meeting with a friend of his, named Drysdale, who had just returned from a sporting expedition in Nigeria, led him to choose that country as a promising field of discovery.

Being sociably inclined, he wanted a companion. Drysdale himself could not join him, but he happened to mention that traces of tin had recently been found near one of the tributaries of the River Yo. This led Royce to think of his school-fellow, Tom Challis, a mining engineer who was not getting on so fast as he would have liked. He went to Challis and proposed that they should go together, Challis to prospect for tin, while he himself pursued his studies in natural history.

"If things look well," he said, "we'll start a tin mine, and go half-shares."

"That's hardly fair to you, as you're going to stand all expenses," replied Challis. "I shall be satisfied with a quarter."

"You're too modest, Tom. Well, I want your company, so I'll agree to a third, nothing less. So that's settled."

Royce purchased a quantity of tinned goods; medical stores; prints, mirrors, and beads for trading with the natives; rifles and ammunition; a tent and other necessaries; and they left Southampton one February day for the Gold Coast. Here they engaged a staff of experienced Hausa carriers--called "boys," whatever their age might be--and started for the interior.

That was several weeks ago, and they were now approaching the tin-bearing region marked on the map with which Drysdale had provided his friend.

About an hour after the promise of a rest had stimulated the carriers, they were further encouraged by striking a native track, which indicated the proximity of a village. Tired as they were, they quickened their pace, and another half-hour's march brought them to cultivated fields of millet and ground-nuts.

The white men, walking ahead of the party, looked forward eagerly for the conical roofs of the village huts, which they expected to see rising above the crops in the distance, and were surprised to find that nothing of the sort was in sight.