CHAPTER XXII.
Prisoners on the island--Left to starve--Months of helplessness--We rejoin the Turks--The real Kamrasi--In the presence of royalty.
We were prisoners on the island of Patooan as we could not procure porters at any price to remove our effects.

We had lost all our riding oxen within a few days.

They had succumbed to the flies, and the only animal alive was already half dead; this was the little bull that had always carried the boy Saat.

It was the 8th of April, and within a few days the boats upon which we depended for our return to civilization would assuredly quit Gondokoro.

I offered the natives all the beads that I had (about 50 lbs.) and the whole of my baggage, if they would carry us to Shooa directly from this spot.