The Affair Ended
By The Capture Of A Portion Of The Herd, And The Return To Camp At 5.30
P.M. We Had Eaten Nothing Since The Previous Evening, As The Boat
Containing Our Breakfast Had Not Yet Appeared.
We had been on our legs
in the sun for fourteen hours, thus we were ready for dinner on the
return to camp.
I was anxious about the missing boat. On the following
day, June 6, at 4.40 P.M., the lost dingy arrived with her crew all
safe. They had missed their way by taking a wrong channel of the river,
which led them into a labyrinth of high reeds, where they were obliged
to pass the night among clouds of mosquitoes.
On the following day they began the tedious journey by rowing homeward
against the stream. They came suddenly upon a large body of natives, who
immediately attacked them with arrows, one of which went through the
trousers of a soldier. My men told a long story, and made themselves out
to be perfect heroes; but my servants and the boatmen told a very
different tale, and declared that they had thrown themselves down in the
bottom of the boat to avoid the arrows, and my servant, Mohammed Haroon,
had himself fired my heavy gun loaded with mould shot at the enemy.
On 7th June I discovered that the Baris of Gondokoro had leagued
themselves with the natives of Belinian against us.
They had attacked conjointly on several occasions. On this day the
natives in force having, as usual, crept stealthily from bush to tree
without being perceived by the soldiers, made a sudden rush upon the
cattle guards, and shot one soldier with an arrow and wounded another
with a lance. I immediately gave orders for an attack on Belinian that
night. At 12.30 A.M. I left my station on horseback, accompanied by
Lieutenant Baker and Mr. Higginbotham, together with Lieutenant-Colonel
Abdel-Kader and twenty men of the "Forty Thieves." Not a word was
spoken, as it was important to march without the slightest noise that
might alarm the native scouts who were generally prowling about
throughout the night. We arrived at head-quarters, a mile and a half
distant, where four companies with one gun had been ordered to be in
readiness. (My little station, Hellet-et-Sit, was a mile and a half
north from the camp of Gondokoro, on the river's bank.) At 1 A.M. We
started with a Bari guide named Sherroom, who had volunteered to serve
me, together with his friend Morgian, at the commencement of the war.
These men spoke Arabic, and since the flight of Tomby, the interpreter
(who had joined our enemies), these two Baris were our invaluable
allies.
The route to Belinian lay for the first two miles through open park-like
country. We then entered the forest, where the darkness made it
difficult to drag the gun, the wheels of which constantly stuck in the
stumps and roots of trees.
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