This glen, like all the others in this range, swarmed with
pigeons, and we got enough for breakfast at one shot. During the hot
months, I believe whites could live entirely on pigeons in this range.
At the camp at Sladen Water they came to the water in clouds, their
very numbers sometimes preventing us getting a good shot, and we had
been living entirely on them, for now we had no other meat.
Unfortunately, our ammunition is almost exhausted, but so long as it
lasts we shall have birds. When it is gone we must eat horseflesh, and
should have been driven to do so before now, only for these birds. I
have an old horse now fattening for the knife, and I am sorry, i.e.
happy, to say, whenever I inspect him he looks better. The one I mean
is the old sideways-going Terrible Billy. Poor old creature! To work
so many years as he has done for man, and then to be eaten at last,
seems a hard fate; but who or what can escape that inexorable shadow,
death?
It may be the destiny of some of ourselves to be eaten; for I fully
believe the natives of these regions look upon all living organisms as
grist for their insatiable mills. As night came on, I was compelled to
lie down at last, but was so bitten and annoyed by the ants, that I
had to keep moving about from place to place the whole night long,
while the [in]sensible Jimmy lay sleeping and snoring, though swarmed
over and almost carried away by the ants, as peacefully as though he
had gone to rest under the canopy of costly state, and lulled with
sounds of sweetest melody.
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