Zulla, January 22d.
Only three days have elapsed since I last wrote to you, but those three days have completely changed the prospects of things here. Then a move forward appeared to be an event which, we hoped, might happen somewhere in the dim future, but which, with the reports that provisions were scarcely accumulating at Senafe, but were being consumed as fast as they were taken up, seemed a very distant matter indeed. Now all this is changed, and “forward” is the cry. The 25th Native Infantry are already on the move, the 4th, “King’s Own,” are to go in a day or two, and the 3d Native Infantry are to follow as soon as possible. Sir Robert Napier goes up to-morrow or next day. Whether he will remain up there, and go forward at once, or whether he will return here again for a short time, is a moot point. I incline to the former opinion. From what I hear, and from what I see in the English papers, pressure is being strongly applied to Sir Robert Napier to move forward. Now, with the greatest deference for the home authorities and for the leader-writers upon the London press, I submit that they are forming opinions upon matters on which no one who has not visited this place is competent to judge. No one, I repeat, can form any opinion of the difficulties with which the Commander-in-chief has to contend here. The first want is the want of water, the second the want of forage, the third the want of transport. Twenty-eight thousand animals were to have been here by the end of December; not more than half [pg 161]that number have arrived, and of the 12,000 which have been landed 2000 are dead, and another 2000 unfit for work. The remainder are doing quite as much as could be expected of them, and are working well and smoothly; but 8000 are not sufficient to convey the provisions and stores of an army up seventy miles, and to carry their own forage as well. That is, they might convey quite sufficient for their supply from day to day, but they cannot accumulate sufficient provisions for the onward journey. The difficulties are simply overwhelming, and I do not know of a position of greater responsibility than that of Sir Robert Napier at the present moment. If he keeps the troops down here upon the plain, the increasing heat may at any moment produce an epidemic; and, in addition to this, the English public will ferment with indignation. On the other hand, if he pushes on with a few thousand men, he does so at enormous risk. He may take any number of laden animals with them; but if we get, as in all probability we shall get, into a country where for days no forage is obtainable, what is to become of the animals? It is not the enemy we fear—the enemy is contemptible; it is the distance, and the questions of provisions and transport. If a column goes on, it cuts itself loose from its base. With the exception of the laden animals, which start with it, it can receive no supplies whatever from the rear; it must be self-supporting. When Sherman left Atalanta he travelled through one of the most fertile countries in the world. We, on the contrary, go through one series of ravines and passes, and although there are many intervening places where we may count upon buying cattle, it is by no means certain that we can procure forage sufficient to last the animals across the next sterile pass. Altogether, it is a most difficult business, [pg 162]and one where the wisest would hesitate upon giving any opinion as to the best course to be pursued. I am sure General Napier will push forward if he sees any chance of a favourable issue; and if he does not, he will remain where he is in spite of any impatient criticism on the part of those who cannot guess at one tithe of his difficulties. Since writing the above I have received reliable information that the wing of the 33d will move forward to Antalo (a hundred miles in advance) in a few days. This is palpable evidence that at any rate we are going to feel our way forward. Personally I need not say how pleased I am, for living with the thermometer from 104° to 112°, in a tent, and surrounded and covered with a fine dust, existence can scarcely be called a pleasure here.
Sir Robert Napier is making great efforts to reduce the weight to be carried forward, and in this he is, without doubt, highly to be commended. The great curse of this army is its enormous number of followers. European regiments have quite a little host of sweepers, Lascars, water-bearers, &c. &c. Even the native regiments have a number of followers. Had English troops direct from England been employed, the weight to be carried would have been very much less than it is at present, and the men, being accustomed to shift and work for themselves, would have been more handy. It is said that the soldier’s kit, now very heavy, is to be reduced; but at present the efforts are being directed almost exclusively against officers. An officer, whatever his rank, is to be allowed one mule only, and there is some rumour that even that allowance is to be reduced. I do not hesitate to say that that amount is insufficient. If an officer had his mule merely to carry his baggage it would be ample, but this [pg 163]is very far from being the case. On it he has to carry his groom’s luggage and warm clothes, and those of his body-servant. He has to carry his cooking-utensils, &c., and the rugs, &c., for his horse; consequently he will be lucky if forty or fifty pounds remains for his own kit. This is not a campaign for a week or a month; it may, in all human probability will, last for a year, perhaps longer, and he has to carry clothes, bedding, &c., for a hot and a cold climate. It is simply impossible to do this in the limits of fifty pounds. Regimental officers are ordered to send back their servants to Bombay, only one to be kept for every three officers. Of course such officers will be able to get most of the work they require performed for them by their own men; but, at the same time, it is a hardship both to officers and servants. In all cases an officer has made an advance of from two to three months’ pay to his servants; in all cases he has provided them with warm clothing; and it is very hard that he should lose all this, and be obliged to turn servants, whom he may have had for years, adrift at a moment’s notice.
Senafe, January 31st.
After the heat and dust of Zulla this place is delightful. The heat of the day is tempered by a cool wind, and the really cold nights brace us up thoroughly. Above all, we have no dust. We are clean. One has to stop for a month upon the Plain of Zulla thoroughly to appreciate the pleasure of feeling clean. Here, too, there is water—not only to drink, but to wash in. After being dust-grimed and unable to wash, the sensation of being free from dust and enabled to wash at pleasure is delightful. Having with great diffi[pg 164]culty succeeded in purchasing baggage-animals, I started early from Zulla, and arrived at Koomaylo in plenty of time to be able to examine the wonderful changes which have taken place there in the last three weeks. There were then some hundreds of animals there; now there are thousands. The lines of the mules and ponies extend in every direction; besides which are bullocks, camels, and elephants. Koomaylo is indeed the head-quarters of the transport-train animals. The camel divisions are here. They go down to the landing-place one day, are fed there, and come back loaded next day, getting their water only here. The elephants work in the same way, but they have to be watered at each end of their journey. The bullock division is here, and works upwards to Rayray Guddy, three days’ march, taking up stores and bringing down Senafe grass when there is any to spare. Four mule and pony divisions are here; these, like the bullocks, work to Rayray Guddy and back. The sick animals of these six divisions are also here, and number nearly twelve hundred, including camels. The watering of all these animals morning and evening is a most interesting sight. There are long troughs, into which water is pumped continuously from the little American pumps. The different animals have each their allotted troughs. As they arrive they are formed in lines, and as one line has drunk the next advances. There is no bustle or confusion, for there is an ample supply of water for all. The water is very clear and good, but is quite warm, and most of the animals object to it the first time of tasting. Although the mules are in better condition than they were some time since, very many of them are still very weak, especially those that have been stationed at Rayray Guddy, where they get no[pg 165]thing to eat but the coarse Senafe hay, and have had very frequently to go without even this. The greatest difficulty of the transport train at present is most unquestionably in its drivers. The greater part were, as I have before said, collected haphazard from the scum of Smyrna, Beyrout, Alexandria, Cairo, and Suez. They are entirely without any idea of discipline, are perfectly reckless as to the Government stores, and are brutally cruel to their animals. By cruel, I do not mean actively cruel, but passively cruel. They do not thrash their mules much, they are too indifferent to the pace at which they travel to put themselves to the trouble of hurrying them. But they are horribly cruel in a passive way. They will continue to work their animals with the most terrible sore backs. They will never take the trouble to loosen the chain which forms part of the Bombay headgear, and which, unless it is carefully watched, will cut into the flesh under the chin, and in hundreds of cases has done so. They will jerk at the rein of their draught-mules until the clumsy bit raises terrible swellings in the mouth; they will say no word about the ailments of their beasts until they can absolutely go no single step further, and then, instead of taking them to the hospital lines, they turn them adrift, and report upon their arrival at night that the mules have died upon the way. There is, however, far less of this going on now than formerly, for a mounted inspector accompanies each train, and many of the large convoys have officers in charge of them. But not only for their cruelty and carelessness are these Egyptian, Levant, and Turk drivers objectionable; they are constantly mutinous. I saw the other day at Zulla a party of fifty who had arrived a few days before deliberately refuse to work. They did not [pg 166]like the place, and they would go back. Everything was tried with them; they were kept upon less than half rations and water for days, but they sturdily refused to do anything. The whole party might of course have been flogged, but that would not have made them work; and the first day that they went out with mules they would have thrown their burdens off and deserted with their animals. I was present when Colonel Holland, director-general of transport, endeavoured to persuade them to work. They steadily refused, and even when he promised that they should be sent back to Suez by the first ship, they refused to do any work whatever until the time for embarkation. As they stood in a circle round him, some gesticulating, but most standing in surly obstinacy, I thought I had never seen such a collection of thorough ruffians in my life—the picked scoundrels of the most lawless population on earth. I stopped one day at Koomaylo, and then came rapidly up the pass. The road is now really a very fair road for the whole distance, with the exception of four miles between Koomaylo and lower Sooro. This piece of road has not, by some strange oversight, been yet touched; but I hear that the 25th Native Infantry, one wing of which regiment is at Koomaylo, are to be set to work at it at once. It is along the flat of the valley, and only requires smoothing, and removing boulders, so that a few days will see this, the last piece of the road, completed. For the rest of the distance the road is everywhere as good as a bye-road in an out-of-the-way district at home. In many places it is very much better. Up the passes at Sooro and Rayray Guddy it is really an excellent road. The vast boulders, which I described upon the occasion of my first passing through it, are either shat[pg 167]tered to pieces by blasting, or are surmounted by the road being raised by a gradual incline. Too much praise cannot be given to the Bombay Sappers and Miners, who have carried out these works. The same party, after finishing these passes, have now just completed a broad zigzag road from the bottom of the pass up to the Senafe plain. This was before the most trying part of the whole journey, now it is a road up which one might drive in a carriage and pair, and which reminds one of the last zigzags upon the summits of the Mount Cenis and St. Gothard passes. The whole of the works I have described are at once samples of skilful engineering and of unremitting exertion. No one who passed through six weeks ago would have believed that so much could possibly be effected in so short a time. Next only to the Bombay Sappers credit must be given to the Beloochee regiment, one wing of which under Major Beville at Sooro, and the other under Captain Hogg at Rayray Guddy, have made the road along those places where blasting was not required.
The Beloochees are a remarkably fine regiment, and work with a willingness and good-will which are beyond praise. Great regret is expressed on all sides that they have not been selected to accompany the 33d regiment upon its advance, especially as they are armed with Enfield rifles.
The Beloochees are deservedly one of the most popular regiments in the Indian service, and there is an esprit de corps—a feeling of personal attachment between men and officers, and a pride on the part of the latter to belong to so good a regiment—which the present extraordinary and unsatisfactory state of the Indian service renders altogether out of the question in the regular native regiments. There an [pg 168]officer forms no part of the regiment. He belongs to it for the time being, but if he goes home for leave, he will upon his return be posted in all probability to some other regiment. In this way all esprit de corps, all traces of mutual good feeling between men and officers, is entirely done away with. How such a system could ever have been devised, and how, once devised, it has ever been allowed to continue, is one of those extraordinary things which no civilian, and no military man under the rank of colonel, can understand.
At the station of Sooro and Rayray Guddy little change has been effected since I last described them, and about the same number of men are stationed there; but at Undel Wells, or Guinea-fowl Plain, as it was formerly called, the place was changed beyond all recognition. When last I was there it was a quiet valley, with a few Shohos watering their cattle at a scanty and dirty well. My own party was the only evidence of the British expedition. Now this was all changed. No city in the days of the gold-mining rush in Australia ever sprung into existence more suddenly. Here are long lines of transport-animals, here are commissariat-tents and stores, here a camp of the pioneers. The whole of the trees and brushwood have been cleared away. Here is the watering-place, with its troughs for animals and its tubs for men—the one supplied by one of Bastier’s chain-pumps, a gigantic specimen of which used to pour out a cataract of water for the delectation of the visitors to the Paris Exhibition—the other by one of the little American pumps. Everything works as quietly and easily as if the age of the station was to be counted by months instead of by days.