174 TRAVELS IN AFRICA.

as bad prospects of being able to do so during that month as in the preceding.

A circumstance, too, took place in the early part of December, which tended materially to render my situation more unpleasant, not to say alarming, than even the former state of suspense and anxiety could possibly have done 5 this was a fire which broke out in one of the huts occupied by the men, and must have inevitably consumed the whole camp and baggage, were it not for the timely exertions of the men and the providential existence of a calm, which had only succeeded a strong breeze a few minutes before. From the precautions which had been always taken to prevent such an accident, I was the more astonished at any thing of this kind oc curring, and from the impossibility of ascertaining by what means the hut took fire, the men who occupied it being all out, I began to suspect that some evil-disposed person had done it ; this however was only surmise, unsupported by any evidence whatever : but what made it the more suspicious was the position of the hut, which was a long distance from the cooking-place, and the nearest to our store. Two days, however, had only elapsed when it again took fire in the same way, and was entirely consumed, but as the wind was then blowing strongly from the east, the store, which was in that direction, again provi-