There was plenty to see at the far-from-cheerful place which was to
become the depot of troops and stores. A pier was being run up for
landing purposes, and vessels were discharging slowly, with the promise
of a deadlock unless more convenience for landing the contents of the
vessels that were lying idle was provided.
To all intents and purposes they were at the edge of a desert, and here
everything that was necessary for the expedition had to be landed. An
enclosure was filled with stacks of pressed hay for the mules and piles
of grain and rice--goods that would be easily damaged, but were fairly
safe, nevertheless, owing to being in a hot and comparatively rainless
district.
Besides the regular labourers that had been engaged, brightly clothed
women, looking particularly picturesque, had been sent over from India
on purpose to grind the corn for the troops. Tents had arisen, forming
quite a canvas town; and storehouses were being constructed by Chinese
carpenters, so that the place was rapidly becoming busily populous. In
addition to those at the landing-place, clusters of tents were scattered
within a circle of a mile, while the main camp of the expedition was a
mile and a half inland, consequent upon the scarcity of water. For at
the beginning all living things, men and beasts, had to depend for the
principal life-sustainer, water, on the supply obtained from the ships.
Consequently every steamer in the harbour was at work night and day
condensing, at a cost of twopence halfpenny a gallon for the coal
consumed in the process.
Henty's senses of sight and smell were offended as they had not been
since the Crimea. Dead mules, camels, and oxen lay everywhere about the
shore, and attempts were being made to get rid of the offence by burning
the carcasses. Wherever the poor brutes were lately dead, vultures were
congregated, many so gorged with flesh that they could hardly rise when
approached, while others, where some poor beast had lately expired, were
walking about at a distance, as if not quite certain that the animal was
dead.
It was a doleful picture--one of the accessories of the glories of war.
Here and there half-starved mules were wandering about, their heads
down, their ears drooping, and their eyes growing dim with the approach
of death; others staggered down to where the sea rippled on the sands,
and tasted again and again the briny water; while others still,
half-maddened by the heat and thirst, drank copiously, to drop dead
where they stood, or crawl away to die miserably in the low
desolate-looking scrub.
A man with a great love for domestic animals, Henty generally had about
half-a-dozen dogs of the Scotch terrier and other breeds to share with
him the quiet of his home study, supplemented by two or three cats which
lived in fairly good harmony; the sight of these suffering dumb
creatures therefore strongly moved his sympathies.
Before his landing, his attention had been attracted by the cruel way in
which the wretched, doleful camels were packed in the dhow, and the
sight of these beasts of burden being disembarked drew his attention at
once.
The native boats could not get nearer than two or three hundred yards
from the shore, for the water was not more than three or four feet deep,
and into these shallows the poor brutes were dragged and thrust, when,
dazed by the novel position, they for the most part lay down, their long
necks raising their curious heads just above the surface, while they
made no attempt to make for the land. Some never did make any effort,
and later their bodies would be seen drifting here and there, growing
more buoyant under the hot sun as decomposition set in. Others,
however, struggled to within fifty yards of the shore before lying down,
to look, with their erect necks and partly submerged bodies, just like
gigantic waterfowl. As for those that were driven ashore, want of food
and the evil treatment received during their transit had reduced them to
the most miserable plight. Their bones were almost starting through
their skins; and while at the best of times, when well fed and watered,
a camel in its utterances is a most doleful, murmurous creature, these
poor brutes lay as if dead upon the sand, uttering feebly the almost
human moaning and complainings peculiar to their race.
Whether from mismanagement or callous brutality, the treatment of the
unfortunate mules and camels landed on these desolate shores was painful
in the extreme, and droves of hundreds untended were wandering about,
striving for a few days' existence by plucking scanty shoots, previous
to sickening and dying.
The scenes, Henty says, were frightful everywhere, but worst of all at
the water-troughs, where the half-mad animals, especially the mules,
struggled for a drink at a time when water was almost worth its weight
in gold. They fought wildly for a draught of that for which they were
dying, biting and kicking till many of them in their weakness were
knocked down and trampled to death, a fate which at least saved them
from perishing miserably under their burdens upon the road.
Thoroughly angered by the neglect, and in accordance with the intense
desire of the practical man to have everything done orderly and well,
Henty busied himself and inquired why these scattered mules were left
untended, to learn that nearly the whole of the mule and camel drivers
had deserted. In fact, at the beginning of the arrangements in
connection with the transport, everything seemed to have gone wrong.
The mules and camels were dying of thirst and neglect; consequently the
advance brigade could not be supplied with food. Someone was in fault,
but, as is often the case, the mistakes of one are visited upon no one
knows how many. But there, it is easy to find fault.
It must have seemed almost bliss to get away from the misery and
confusion in the neighbourhood of Annesley Bay. At least there was the
hope of ceasing to be tormented by the flies that were increasing and
multiplying, as they did farther north in the old Pharaonic days. There
was the prospect of a weary desert journey over sand and rock, with a
pause here and there where wells existed with their scanty supply of
water, or others were being dug, but there was the promise of a
pleasanter existence afterwards, since the camp station was nearly five
hundred feet above sea-level, with a likelihood of comparative coolness.
It was a long and dreary ride, with nature apparently against the
intruders. As a consequence, with animals as well as with man
everything seemed to go wrong. One of Henty's principal complaints was
still of the flies, which he considered to be, up to the present, the
greatest nuisance he had met with in Abyssinia. He declared them to be
as numerous and as irritating as they were in Egypt; but he consoled
himself with the fact that they went to sleep when the sun set, and as
there were no mosquitoes to take their place, he was able to sleep in
tranquillity, that is to say, to lie down in the sand. Water, of
course, was too scarce for a wash; but here again there was
consolation--a good shake on rising, and the dry clean sand all fell
away.
Still, there was a fresh anxiety for him in connection with the
traveller's greatest worry, that is, luggage. He was much troubled by
the fact that the troop of mules which bore the officers' necessaries
had not turned up, and one of the missing animals was the carrier of his
own luggage and stores.
On this march Henty had his first experience of the desert wells. These
wells were dug in the bed of what in the rainy season must have been a
mighty torrent fifty yards wide. He states that he had seen many
singular scenes, but this was the strangest. The wells were six in
number, about a dozen feet across and as many deep. All the water had
to be raised in buckets by men standing upon wooden platforms who passed
the full buckets from hand to hand. The water was then emptied into
earthen troughs, which soon became mud basins, and from these the
animals were allowed to drink to the tune of a perpetual chant kept up
by the natives, without which the latter seemed unable to work.
Round the wells was a vast crowd of animals--flocks of goats and small
sheep, strings of draught bullocks, mules, ponies, horses, and camels,
and about them stood the regular inhabitants of the country in their
scanty attire, armed with spears, swords like reaping-hooks, and heavy
clubs. The women among them were either draped in calico or
picturesquely clothed in leather, and plentifully adorned with necklaces
of seeds or shells.
Here, too, the trouble with the thirsty animals was often terrible, the
camels being especially unmanageable. One of them, for instance,
because its pack had slipped beneath it, began to utter strange uncouth
cries, kicking and plunging wildly, until it started a stampede among
the mules, many of which had probably never seen any of these ungainly
beasts before.
When matters settled down, the little party made for the commissariat
tent to draw their rations, and here a religious trouble arose among
some of the Parsee clerks of one of the departments. They complained
bitterly that there was no mutton, and that it was contrary to their
religion to eat beef. The commissariat officer regretted the
circumstances, but pointed out that at present no sheep had been landed,
while the small ovine animals of the country were mere skin and bone.
Henty closes this little scene with the moral that Parsees should not go
to war in a country where mutton is scarce, and he wonders how the
Hindoo soldiers will manage to preserve their caste intact.