He Was A Very Grateful, But Unruly Patient, As He Had Never Been Accustomed To Remain Quiet. At The End

Of that time we arranged an angarep comfortably upon a camel, upon which he was transported to Geera, in company

With a long string of camels, heavily laden with dried meat and squares of hide for shields, with large bundles of hippopotamus skin for whip making, together with the various spoils of the chase. Last, but not least, were numerous leathern pots of fat that had been boiled down from elephants and hippopotami.

The camels were to return as soon as possible with supplies of corn for onr people and horses. Another elephant-hunter was to be sent to us in the place of Jali; but I felt that we had lost our best man.*

* I heard from Jali six weeks later; he was then well,

and offered to rejoin us shortly, but I declined to

risk the strength of his leg.

Although my people had been in the highest spirits up to this time, a gloom had been thrown over the party by two causes--Jali's accident, and the fresh footmarks of the Base that had been discovered upon the sand by the margin of the river. The aggageers feared nothing, and if the Base had been legions of demons they would have faced them, sword in hand, with the greatest pleasure. But my Tokrooris, who were brave in some respects, had been so cowed by the horrible stories recounted of these common enemies at the nightly camp-fires by the Hamran Arabs, that they were seized with a panic, and resolved to desert en masse, and return to Katariff, where I had originally engaged them, and at which place they had left their families.

This desertion having been planned, they came to me in a body, just as the camels and Jali were about to depart, and commenced a series of absurd excuses for their intended desertion. The old grey-headed Moosa, by whose fortune-telling and sorcery the party were invariably guided, had foretold evil. This had confirmed them in their determination to return home. They were not a bad set of fellows, but, like most of their class, they required peculiar management. If natives are driven, they invariably hate their master, and turn sulky; if you give in to them, they lose respect, and will never obey. They are exceedingly subject to sudden impulses, under the influence of which they are utterly unreasonable. As the expedition depends for success entirely upon the union of the party, it is highly necessary to obtain so complete a control over every individual, that the leader shall be regarded with positive reverence, and his authority in all matters accepted as supreme. To gain such a complete ascendancy is a work of time, and is no easy matter, as an extreme amount of tact and judgment is necessary, combined with great kindness and common sense, with, at times, great severity. The latter should be avoided as long as possible.

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