Here we met an old friend, the bramble-bush.

My strong moleskins were quite worn through at the knees, and the leather trowsers of my companion were torn and his legs bleeding.

Tearing my handkerchief in two, I tied the pieces round my knees, and then encountered another difficulty.

We were still forty or fifty yards from the clear water, but now we were opposed by great masses of papyrus, which are like palms in miniature, eight or ten feet high, and an inch and a half in diameter.

These were laced together by twining convolvulus, so strongly that the weight of both of us could not make way into the clear water.