All The
Property I Had Sent On In Advance He Had Stored Away; Or Rather,
I Should Say, As Much As Had Reached Him, For The Road Expenses
Had Eaten A Great Hole In It.
Once settled down into position, Sheikh Snay and the whole
conclave of Arab merchants came to call on me.
They said they
had an army of four hundred slaves armed with muskets ready to
take the field at once to hunt down Manua Sera, who was cutting
their caravan road to pieces, and had just seized, by their
latest reports, a whole convoy of their ammunition. I begged
them strongly to listen to reason, and accept my advice as an old
soldier, not to carry on their guerilla warfare in such a
headlong hurry, else they would be led a dance by Manua Sera, as
we had been by Tantia Topee in India. I advised them to allow me
to mediate between them, after telling them what a favourable
interview I had had with Manua Sera and Maula, whose son was at
that moment concealed in Musa's tembe. My advice, however, was
not wanted. Snay knew better than any one how to deal with
savages, and determined on setting out as soon as his army had
"eaten their beef-feast of war."
On my questioning him about the Nile, Snay still thought the
N'yanza was the source of the Jub river[FN#8] as he did in our
former journey, but gave way when I told him that vessels
frequented the Nile, as this also coincided with his knowledge of
navigators in vessels appearing on some waters to the northward
of Unyoro.
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