A Few Minutes Later, I Heard Three Shots Fired In Rapid Succession At About Three-Quarters Of A Mile Distant.

The Turks and my men immediately thronged outside the village, which position being on a hill, we had a panoramic view of the surrounding country.

We shortly perceived a number of men, including a few of the Turks' party, approaching from an opposite hill, carrying something heavy in their arms. With the telescope I distinguished a mat on which some object of weight was laboriously supported, the bearers grasping the corners in their hands. "One of our people is killed!" murmured one Turk. "Perhaps it's only a native," said another. "Who would trouble himself to carry a black fellow home!" exclaimed a third. The mystery was soon cleared by the arrival of the party with the dead body of one of Kamrasi's headmen; one ball had struck him through the chest, another through the right arm, and the third had passed through the body from side to side. He had been shot by some Bari slaves who acted as soldiers belonging to the Turks' party. It appeared that the deceased had formerly sent seventy elephants' tusks to the people of Mahommed Wat-el-Mek against the orders of Kamrasi, who had prohibited the export of ivory from his kingdom, as he had agreed to deal exclusively with Ibrahim. The culprit was therefore condemned to death, but having some powerful adherents in his village, Kamrasi had thought it advisable to employ the Turks to shoot him; this task they gladly accepted, as they were minus seventy tusks through his conduct. Without my knowledge, a small party had started in open daylight to his village close to our camp, and on attempting to enter the fence, several lances were thrown at the Turks; the deceased rushed from the hut attempting to escape, and was immediately shot dead by three of the Bari soldiers. The hands were then (as usual in all these countries) amputated at the wrists, in order to detach the copper bracelets; the body being dragged about two hundred paces from the village, was suspended by the neck to a branch of the tamarind tree. All the slave women (about seventy) and children were then driven down to the spot by the Turks to view the body as it swung from the branch; when thoroughly horrified by the sight, they were threatened to be served precisely in a similar manner should they ever attempt to escape.

Superlatively brutal as this appeared, I could not help reflecting that our public executions in England convey a similar moral; the only difference being in the conduct of the women; the savages having to be DRIVEN to the sight as witnesses, while European females throng curiously to such disgusting exhibitions. A few minutes after the departure of the crowd, the tree was covered with vultures, all watching the prospective feast. [The woman Bacheeta ran away, and we never saw her again. Some time after, we heard that she had escaped to Fowooka's people, fearing to be left by us, as we had promised, in Chopi.]

In the evening Kamrasi sent a number of women and children as presents to Ibrahim:

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