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April 1 - Left Digain at eight, and lunched in the little hill town [[insert]] Zulata [[/insert]] which we had christened pineappleville on the way out. Today there were no pineapples, to our great disappointment. We reached Balala at 1.30, and although it was early in the day to halt, we were assured that it was too far to the next village. We camped in the same little palaver kitchen by the river, and were glad we stayed, for a fancolin, a gorgeous blue and white guinea fowl, and two mongoose were brought to us.

Feeding our menagerie is now something of a chore; the chimp gets milk from a syringe, as well as pieces of fruit - or she did until the last few days when she has been so sick. The hornbills are absolutely insatiable, and every time we stop on the road I cram fruit hard boiled eggs and palm nuts their gaping beaks. The two adult females have so far refused to eat, and two small black and white ones eat nothing but chicken guts, which are not always easy to get.

April 2 - Today was a short day, and we made no effort to get away early in the morning.. A five hour walk brought us to Dobli's Island, and we were delighted to return to this pretty town with its big cotton trees and its roomy guest house. Nobody was around when we arrived, and we assumed it was because it was early in the afternoon. However, evening came, and none of our former friends appeared; the schoolteacher did drop in for a moment, but the Paramount Chief and the Clan Chief never showed up. A violent thunder storm came up, but our thatched roof was water tight, and we enjoyed the venison stew which Charlie made for us. We sent Bobor on ahead of us with a message to the plantain to have trucks waiting for us day after tomorrow.

April 3 -
We left Dobli's Island early in the morning, and the Chiefs did not come around even for the customary dash of tobacco and shillings which we dispense in return for a night's lodging. The trail led at first through coffee farms and cleared land, then, instead of the dense forest trail we had followed before, we got off on a horrible trail across country that had recently been felled and burned. It was the hardest morning's walk I have ever put in, three hours of it over desolate country, climbing logs, stumbling into stakes hidden in brush, and all under a broiling sun with no shade for three hours. In one spot where they were still felling trees, a boy brought us a young hornbill; when we asked him where the mother was he admitted that he had eaten it, and when we told him he had had a "six shilling chop" his dismay was patent. He was glad to take three shillings for the baby, and we popped it into a basket, and went on.

At noon we were over the bad trail, and came into a little village where we were offered plenty of pineapples. The four of us ate six pineapples, relishing the cool juice of them after our hard morning. At five o'clock, with rain threatening, we suggested stopping for the night in a small village, but our boys knew that they would get more rice and palm oil in the next town, Swagaju, where we had stopped before, and they begged us to go on. It seemed almost inhuman to let our hammock boys carry us any farther, but they sang and danced the whole way, and we got into town in record time.