We Commenced, For A Certain Number Of Days, With Short Marches,
Walking Gently Until Broken In To Travel.
This is of so much
importance, that it occurs to us that more might be made out of
soldiers if the first few days' marches were easy, and gradually
increased in length and quickness.
The nights were cold, with heavy
dews and occasional showers, and we had several cases of fever. Some
of the men deserted every night, and we fully expected that all who
had children would prefer to return to Tette, for little ones are
well known to prove the strongest ties, even to slaves. It was
useless informing them, that if they wanted to return they had only
to come and tell us so; we should not be angry with them for
preferring Tette to their own country. Contact with slaves had
destroyed their sense of honour; they would not go in daylight, but
decamped in the night, only in one instance, however, taking our
goods, though, in two more, they carried off their comrades'
property. By the time we had got well into the Kebrabasa hills
thirty men, nearly a third of the party, had turned back, and it
became evident that, if many more left us, Sekeletu's goods could not
be carried up. At last, when the refuse had fallen away, no more
desertions took place.
Stopping one afternoon at a Kebrabasa village, a man, who pretended
to be able to change himself into a lion, came to salute us.
Smelling the gunpowder from a gun which had been discharged, he went
on one side to get out of the wind of the piece, trembling in a most
artistic manner, but quite overacting his part.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 132 of 505
Words from 35708 to 35995
of 136856
