Foweera Was An Excellent Military Point, As It Was Equidistant From The Nile North And East At The Angle Where The River Turned To The West From Atada.

I was so annoyed at the deception practised by Kamrasi that I determined to fraternise with the M'was, should they appear at Kisoona; and I made up my mind not to fire a shot except in absolute necessity for so faithless an ally as the king.

This I explained to M'Gambi, and threatened that if porters were not supplied I would wait at Kisoona, join the M'was on their arrival, and with them as allies I would attack the island which Kamrasi boasted was his stronghold. This idea frightened M'Gambi, and both he and Cassave started to procure porters, promising most faithfully to appear that evening, and to start together to Foweera on the following morning. We were a party of twenty guns; there was no fear in the event of an attack. I ordered all the huts of the village to be burned except those belonging to our men; thus we had a clear space for the guns in case of necessity. In the evening, true to his promise, M'Gambi appeared with a number of natives, but Cassave had followed Kamrasi.

At sunrise on the following day we started, my wife in a litter, and I in a chair. The road was extremely bad, excessively muddy from the rain of yesterday, trodden deeply by the hoofs of herds of cattle, and by the feet of the thousands that had formed Kamrasi's army and camp followers. There was no variety in the country, it was the same undulating land overgrown with impenetrable grass, and wooded with mimosas; every swamp being shaded by clumps of the graceful wild date. After a march of about eight miles we found the route dry and dusty, the rain on the preceding day having been partial. There was no water on the road and we were all thirsty, having calculated on a supply from the heavy rain. Although many thousands of people had travelled on the path so recently as the previous day, it was nevertheless narrow and hemmed in by the high grass, as the crowd had marched in single file and had therefore not widened the route. This caused great delay to the porters who carried the litter, as they marched two deep; thus one man had to struggle through the high grass. M'Gambi started off in advance of the party with several natives at a rapid pace, while the Turks and some of my men guarded the ammunition, and I remained in company with the litter and five of my men to bring up the rear. The progress of the litter was so slow that, after travelling all day until sunset, we were outmarched, and just as it was getting dark, we arrived at a spot where a path branched to the south, while the main path that we had been following continued E.N.E. At this point a native was waiting, having been stationed there by the Turks to direct us to the south; he explained that the people had halted at a village close by.

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