"16. The bugle to sound 'Extinguish fires' at 8 p.m."
Having left everything in perfect order in the new central territory, I was ready to start for Gondokoro on 20th March.
I had been two years and five months without any news or communication with either Egypt or Europe when the post arrived with Wat-el-Mek. About 600 copies of the Times had arrived at once. We had been introduced to the Tichborne case; and of course had, at the earliest stage of the trial, concluded that the claimant was Arthur Orton. The news that is almost stereotyped in English newspapers gave us the striking incidents of civilization. Two or three wives had been brutally knocked about by their husbands, who had received only a slight punishment. A prominent divorce case; a few Irish agrarian outrages; a trial in the ecclesiastical court of a refractory clergyman; the smash-up of a few public companies, with the profitable immunity of the directors; a lady burnt to death; a colliery explosion; several hundred railway accidents, which induced me to prefer walking; the Communists had half destroyed Paris; republican principles were fast spreading through England; the Gladstone ministry would last for ever; some babies had been poisoned, and the baby-farmer had been hanged; deceased wife's sisters were to marry their disconsolate brothers; England was to pay a tribute to America (for the freaks of the Alabama); drunkenness was on the increase; ladies were to become our physicians; &c. I was almost afraid to return home; but as I had some friends and relations that I wished to see again, I left my little paradise, Fatiko, and marched for Gondokoro, accompanied by my good natives, Shooli and Gimoro.
After the absurd conduct and the defeat of Tayib Agha at Moogi, I fully expected to have to fight my way through; but upon arrival in that district the natives knew me, and we were not molested. They even sent me six cows which had been lost by Tayib Agha on the road during his unlucky march.
I had taken under my especial protection a number of Bari women and young girls whom Wat-el-Mek and Tayib Agha had pressed into their service to carry loads during their journey from Gondokoro to Fatiko. There can be no doubt that these poor creatures never would have been returned to their country, had I not delivered them; but seeing their condition upon their arrival at Fatiko, I had ordered them to accompany me, and to show me the position of their homes during the march.
On arrival at the broad dry bed of a stream about two days' march from Gondokoro, we halted beneath the shade of a large tree for breakfast. The women and children now approached, and hesitatingly declared that this was their country, and their villages were near. They evidently doubted my sincerity in restoring them, which hurt me exceedingly.
"Go, my good women," I exclaimed, "and when you arrive at your homes, explain to your people that you were captured entirely against my will, and that I am only happy to have released you."
For a few moments they looked around them, as hardly believing the good news. In another instant, as the truth flashed across their delighted minds, they rushed upon me in a body, and before I had time for self-defence, I found myself in the arms of a naked beauty who kissed me almost to suffocation, and with a most unpleasant embrace licked both my eyes with her tongue. The sentries came to my assistance, together with the servants, who withstood the grateful crowd; otherwise both my wife and myself would have been subjected to this painful thanksgiving from the liberated Bari women.
Their freedom having been explained, we gave each a present of beads as a reward for the trouble they had undergone, and they went away rejoicing, upon the road to their own homes.
We arrived at Gondokoro on 1st April, 1873, without the slightest disturbance during the march. This was the exact day upon which my term of service would have expired, according to my original agreement with the Khedive.