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.