Its course absorbed some
small tributaries and did not sensibly enlarge. As for the general
direction, after having been north for a long time, it took a bend
toward the northwest.
However, this river furnished its share of food. Long lianes, armed
with thorns, which served as fishhooks, caught several of those
delicately-flavored "sandjikas", which, once smoked, are easily
carried in this region; black "usakas" were also caught, and some
"mormdes," with large heads, the genciva of which have teeth like the
hairs of a brush, and some little "dagalas," the friends of running
waters, belonging to the clupe species, and resembling the whitebait
of the Thames.
During the 9th of July, Dick Sand had to give proof of extreme
coolness. He was alone on the shore, carrying off a "caama," the horns
of which showed above the thicket. He had just shot it, and now there
bounded, thirty feet off, a formidable hunter, that no doubt came to
claim its prey, and was not in a humor to give it up. It was a lion of
great height, one of those which the natives call "karamos," and not
one of the kind without a mane, named "lion of the Nyassi." This one
measured five feet in height--a formidable beast. With one bound the
lion had fallen on the "caama," which Dick Sand's ball had just thrown
to the ground, and, still full of life, it shook and cried under the
paw of the powerful animal.
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