MESSRS. JAMES AND PHILLIPPS START ON A VISIT TO
RASALULU—CURIOUS WAY OF SHAVING CHILDREN’S HEADS—A DISGUSTING
BASÉ—THE CAMEL-DRIVERS BECOME MUTINOUS—INTENDED ATTACK
BY BASÉ—WE FIRE THE COUNTRY AND MAKE A ZAREEBA—ENCAMP AT
WO-AMMA—TROUBLE AGAIN WITH CAMEL-MEN—LIONS DISTURB US—ARRIVAL
AT HEIKOTA—A TALE OF BLOOD AND SLAVERY.
February 14th.—Made a rather short march, and encamped at Aibara, on some
table-land by the Mareb. Ere doing so we had to clear away a quantity of
mimosa bushes and young palms; then construct a zareeba. Mr. Phillipps,
at the request of one of the Basé, shot a monkey to-day. This was skinned
and eaten by them in the evening, and was, no doubt, looked upon as a
delicate morsel, probably as much so as grouse or partridge is with us.
February 15th.—This morning, at 9 a.m., Messrs. Phillipps and F. James
went off to Amadeb, to complain to Rasalulu, a deputy of King John of
Abyssinia, about our late attack, and endeavour to get their rifles back.
Whether they ever succeeded in doing so I don’t know; but I should think
probably not.
To-day we lost another camel; this makes the sixth we have lost in the
Basé country. A camel is a particularly stupid kind of animal, and does
not seem to know what is good for him, or rather, what is bad for him,
for he will frequently eat a very poisonous green-looking shrub, called
“heikabeet.” This appears to produce considerable pain, and, as far as I
could make out, inflammation of the intestines. I brought some of it home
with the intention of having it analysed, but somehow or other it has got
lost.
February 16th.—The Basé women and children, when we first came here, were
rather shy, and ran away from us as if we were monsters of iniquity; now
they appear to be getting quite tame, and are continually hanging about
the camp. The heads of the children are curiously trimmed, according to
fancy, just as they are at Kassala. All kinds of fantastical devices are
arranged, with the aid of a razor, just as a gardener operates on a box
bush in England. I have seen a child’s head shaved completely, with the
exception of a tuft of hair just over the right temple; another will have
a tuft on each side, whilst a third will have those and one on the crown
in addition; another will have several other little islands, and another
a tuft running from the forehead to the back of the head, just for all
the world like a clown in a circus, and so on.
Ali Bacheet to-day injured his foot with an axe. I bathed it, and whilst
getting a bandage one of the Basé diligently employed himself in sucking
it, then rinsed his mouth two or three times with the bloody water which
had washed his foot. This I thought was a somewhat nasty proceeding, but
I did not waste my breath in expostulating with these men of primitive
habits.
Five tetél were shot to-day. In the evening our men with the dhurra from
Amadeb returned.
February 17th.—Last night our camel-drivers, with their singing, and
hyænas howling and laughing, much disturbed our slumbers. This morning
the Basé here were very uneasy in their minds, being under the impression
that we had sent to Amadeb for Turkish soldiers. However, I think we made
them believe—what really was the case—that Messrs. James and Phillipps
had gone to lay a complaint about the Dembelas.
Just after dinner, whilst we were sitting round the camp fire smoking
the pipe of peace, the camel-men whom we had hired at Kassala came in a
body to us, saying they wanted to return to Kassala, stating as a reason
that they were afraid of the Basé and Abyssinians, they being so few
in number. We gave them distinctly to understand that we were neither
afraid of them nor the Basé; for the latter we had plenty of bullets if
they interfered with us, and for our camel-drivers who did so we had the
coorbatch, and so we dismissed them to chew the cud of reflection.
Two tetél shot to-day by Messrs. Colvin and A. James, and several
beautiful birds by me. We are passing a very peaceful and calm existence
at present, little to do except to amuse ourselves as fancy dictates.
Some go out on horseback in search of antelopes or buffalos; I generally
content myself just here with taking out a shot-gun after breakfast,
prowling round in quest of some of the beautiful plumaged birds which are
so numerous, and in the afternoon write up my diary and prepare letters
for post. After that read one of the many interesting books which we have
until 6 p.m., when we all have our evening bath, just before dinner,
which was always ready at 7 p.m. After dinner we sit round the camp fire
and chat over the social pipe, when some go to bed, and I skin and
prepare my birds to bring home.
We had a capital library with us, and were never short of most
interesting works, such as Macaulay’s Essays, Sir Samuel Baker’s “Nile
Tributaries,” Trollope’s, Dicken’s, Thackeray’s, Disraeli’s, and other
works.
February 18th.—A young baboon and a small monkey were captured yesterday;
this day they are quite tame, allowing us to stroke them without
exhibiting any signs of fear. Unfortunately the young baboon had been
injured in the thigh by a spear which severed the muscles, causing the
wound to gape very much. The flies annoyed him so much that I determined
to put him under chloroform, and bring the edges together by means of
two or three silver sutures. I therefore put him on the table, where he
lay as quietly and sensibly as any human being, looking up at me with
his nice brown eyes in a very human-being like kind of way. He almost
seemed to say, “I know it is for my good, doctor; don’t hurt me more
than you can help, and be quick about it.” He took the chloroform very
well, and when complete anæsthesia had been produced I relinquished the
post of chloroformist to an assistant, with suitable instructions. He,
however, was so intent in watching the operation that sufficient air
was not admitted with the anæsthetic, the result being that just as I
had finished putting in the last suture our poor little friend looked to
all appearance dead. I at once set up artificial respiration, but to no
purpose—the vital spark had fled.
Two Basé sheiks from Kokassie visited our camp to-day. They had a short
pow-wow both on their arrival and departure. They kissed our hands
profusely—overdid it, we thought; we were apt to look with suspicion on
an excessive manifestation of friendship.
February 19th.—Just after breakfast I picked up my gun, intending to
take a stroll in the neighbourhood, when Elongi, the Koolookoo Sheik,
taking hold of my arm, led me to Beyrumfi, to whom he communicated some
important information, which he in turn communicated to Suleiman in
Arabic, and the latter to me thus—
“You not go out this morning, doctor. The Sheik, he say, 300 or 400 bad
Basé have come about the mountains by us, and they come bym-bye to kill
us all.”
I regret to say that Suleiman’s indignation caused him to indulge in
profane language, and he expressed a strong wish to know “What the d—l
dese black rascals meant. We find them plenty meat; we give plenty
presents to them; we kind to them always, and now dey want to kill us
all.” Then, turning abruptly to Beyrumfi and a cluster of Basé, he opened
a box full of rifle cartridges, and very angrily said, “Tell dese black
d—s, and dey can tell de other Basé, that we will give them some of dese
bullets, and that we kill one, two hundred of dem in five minutes.”
Beyrumfi translated this pleasing intelligence to his hearers, who, in
due time, I dare say, passed it on. Elongi and his men swore they would
stick to us, and I believe they would; but for all that we did not allow
any Basé to sleep within our zareeba. We had become rather lax in the
matter of zareebas lately, and had not constructed one here; but I need
hardly say that on hearing this all in camp were soon set in motion, I
remarking what a fine field this would be for Mr. Gladstone to indulge in
his tree-felling propensities. He would have found some ebony trees well
worthy of his grand old arm.
We had a great deal of very fatiguing work for hours, not only in cutting
down and dragging in a sufficient number of trees to form our zareeba,
but also in felling young palm trees just round the camp. When all this
had been completed the country was set on fire. This quickly spread for
miles. In the midst of it all Messrs. James and Phillipps returned
from Amadeb much surprised at the activity in camp. We soon gave them
all the news, and I cannot say that we were altogether surprised at the
information we received in the morning, as we had observed a good many
camp fires in the night—all over the hills—where no camp fires should be.
February 20th.—Last night we went to bed, leaving sentries posted round
the camp, and well prepared to give a good account of ourselves should
the Basé have conceived the idea of attacking us. Perhaps Suleiman’s
timely admonition and explanation respecting the penetrating power of
our bullets deterred them; at all events we were not attacked, which was
satisfactory both to us and the Basé. Had they done so, I computed that
with our 22 rifles and guns, and about a dozen revolvers, protected by
our strong zareeba, we could have polished off about 100 of these poor
savages every five minutes, which would have been no satisfaction to
them or us. Looking at the matter again in another light, had they come
in sufficient numbers, or laid siege to the camp, we should inevitably
have gone to the bad, which would have been a decided inconvenience to
us, to say the least of it. Our comrades informed us that when they
arrived at Amadeb they heard that our late disaster had been telegraphed
to Kassala, Cairo, and, of course, to England. I then felt glad I had
sent a true version of the affair to England, knowing full well that
wild reports, of a most unreliable character, were more likely to get
abroad than true ones. From my youth up I have remembered the story of
the three black crows; also that David once made a very pungent remark,
“I have said in my heart all men are liars,” and Carlyle, “There are so
many millions of people in the world mostly fools.” However, respecting
the latter remark, I should say that—speaking from experience—they are
frequently not such fools as they look. The former remark was rather a
sweeping one, not _quite_ adapted to the present day.
To-day we moved on to Onogooloo, about two hours beyond Koolookoo. On
passing the latter place Elongi and many of the Basé remained behind, but
his father, a quiet, peaceable-looking old fellow, came on with us. This
was a short march of about seven hours only.
February 22nd.—This day, after a march of about six hours, we arrived at
our old camping placed, called by the festive name of Wo-amma, familiarly
known as Whoa Emma. There we found that, within the past 12 hours,
quite a drove of elephants had been past, and, of course, we were so
unfortunate as to miss them. The Basé are thinning off, but Elongi has
rejoined us to-day. To-day my rifle barrel was so hot at 5 p.m. that no
one could grasp it.
February 23rd.—Breakfast at 7 a.m. On the march at 10, and encamp at
Gebel-Moussa at 5.40 p.m. _En route_ we observed a large tract of country
on fire, and suddenly came upon a herd of buffalos, which raised a
tremendous cloud of dust. Of course we gave chase for a short distance,
and of course did not get near them, for they can go at a tremendous pace.
February 24th.—Life is more enjoyable, if we have some difficulties
to overcome occasionally, and succeed in doing so; and if we do not,
perhaps (speaking as a philosopher) it is better than having a quiet run
of prosperity. To-day, like the past few days, has been warm, 95° in
the shade. Our journey was short, namely, from 10 a.m. till 1.15 p.m.,
encamping at Abion. _En route_ we came across many elephant tracks, a
lion and lioness, and after that a lion, lioness, and three cubs, but did
not succeed in bagging any of them, but three tetél, a nellut, gazelle,
and two bustards were shot. The latter are remarkably fleshy, and very
good eating. Seldom a day passed without tetél, nellut, gazelles, maarif,
mehedehét or dick-dick being shot. The latter is a beautiful little
antelope of the smallest kind. I shot many very small, beautifully
plumaged sun-birds to-day—less than half the size of wrens—but only
managed to bring two or three of them home, as the shot, small as it was,
blew them all to pieces; they ought really to be shot with sand.
It became known in camp that we purpose to-morrow cutting across country
for the river Settite, or Tacazze, amongst the Hamran or sword-hunting
Arabs, _viâ_ Sarcella. In consequence of this we were told (just
before dinner) that after that meal we should receive a deputation of
camel-drivers and horse-boys to enter a protest against this plan.
Accordingly, just after dinner they came in a body, saying that nothing
would induce them to pass the village of Sarcella, as the Basé there were
bad people, and they had just heard that they had sworn to spear every
man, woman, or child of the Beni-Amirs that they encountered, on account
of the raid which Sheik Ahmed had made on them the other day, just after
he left us on our march into their territory. This was the first news
we had of his performances there. They said that after making “aman”
with the Basé, he speared three or four hundred of the men and took all
the women and children as slaves. We reproved them for their cowardice,
saying that they were not old women or children, they had their spears
and shields, whilst we had rifles and revolvers, and were strong enough
to make a two days’ march through their territory, instead of one day.
Our arguments were fruitless; they were quite willing to go with us from
Hiekota to the Settite, but they would not, on any account, pass by
Sarcella. We, therefore, made a virtue of necessity, and gave up the idea.
February 25th.—To-day we encamped at Toodloak, having made a journey of
seven and a half miles. I captured a chameleon on the road. Panthers
rather disturbed us last night, and at 4 a.m. a hyæna close to my tent
exercised his risible faculties so much that I, not seeing exactly where
the laugh came in, got up and saluted him with a shower of stones. About
5 a.m. lions were heard; some of us got up and went in quest of them,
came within about 40 yards of one, but he turned off into the jungle when
he caught sight of us. However, during our stay in the Basé country 18
buffalos and about 60 antelopes, besides other game, were shot by members
of the party. We could easily have secured elephants had we remained long
enough and followed them up, and many more buffalos and antelopes had we
remained longer in the country, and, of course, giraffes and ostriches.
The only rhinoceros, or tracks of one, we did not find until we reached
Abyssinia. I have not enlarged much on hunting scenes, fearing that my
book would become bulky, and that the _generality_ of my readers would
scarcely care to read a repetition of such scenes.
February 26th.—Heat getting great, 94° in shade to-day. Another 7½ hours
brought us to Heikota. There we found quite a heap of letters, papers,
and periodicals from England.
The contents of the letters were, of course, greedily devoured by us all,
and as for the newspapers and periodicals, they furnished enough of news
for days. Although many of them were fully two months old, the contents
were new to us.
About an hour after our arrival Sheik Ahmed appeared and received us
literally with open arms, at the same time kissing us on either cheek.
This I could have put up with under different circumstances, but I must
say this mode of salutation is not acceptable to me. We found from Herr
Schumann that the wildest rumours respecting us had reached them—five had
been killed by the Abyssinians, two taken prisoners and put in irons, all
our men killed, whilst our camels and everything else had been annexed.
The Sheik says that had he known of the attack in time he would willingly
have put 1,400 men in the field at once to assist us. He gave us an
account of his revenge on the Basé at Sarcella after he left us, but
there were some unpleasant little details which he prudently omitted,
thinking probably that they would shock our English susceptibilities. The
particulars Herr Schumann furnished us with.
His tale was this—When the Sheik left us to join his men at Sarcella they
had about 500 of the Basé in a cave; the Sheik arrived there quietly,
beseiged them for about 10 days, of course cutting them off from water
and food.
During this time they ate their goats and sheep raw, quenching their
thirst with the blood of these animals. Finally the only course left open
to the beseiged was to place themselves at the mercy of their merciless
conquerors; so, driven by hunger, thirst, and the smell of their dead,
they crawled out, weakened by want, in threes and fours. All the men to
the number of about 300, were speared on the spot, whilst about 200 women
and children were taken into captivity and sold as slaves, realizing
30, 40, 50, 60, and 70 dollars each. About 30 remained unsold on our
arrival; these I saw next day. All the cattle, sheep, goats, dhurra, and
everything else the Beni-Amirs could lay their hands on were seized. Now
we could understand why the idea of passing through or by Sarcella was so
repugnant to our men. I have many patients to attend to, who literally
appear to hunger and thirst after my pills and medicine.