We should have known enough by that time to leave four or five men on guard close by; as it was, when the men still on board the dhow began kicking up a babel, Fred and I came running and jumping back through the marsh just in time to see a crocodile wriggle off into the water, with the corpse in his jaws feet first.

Fred fired a shotted salute, but missed, and that ended that funeral.
By day we passed villages on higher ground, where we might have procured more food if we had dared run the risk of meeting Germans.

It was likely enough the villagers were so used to dhows that they would not trouble to report having seen us in the distance; but it was perfectly certain that if we paid them a visit they would pass word along from mouth to mouth with that astonishing, undiscoverable ease that is at once the blessing and bane of governments.
So Fred wasted hot hours with the only rifle, trying to hunt meat on a shore where all the four-legged game had been ran down by the natives, or butchered by the German machine-guns long ago (for to teach Sudanese mercenaries the art of rapid fire in action their officers marched them out to practise on herds of antelope.

There was game in plenty away from the lake, but none where the German officer could conveniently practise his profession.) We tried to shoot ducks and geese; but a rifle at long range is not the best weapon for that sport.

We shot very few, and then only to discover the invincible repugnance natives have to eating "dagi" as they call all birds.