A Very Welcome Packet Of Quinine And Other Medicines Reached Us
Here From Rigby, Who, Hearing Our Complaints That The Hottentots
Could Only Be Kept Alive By Daily Potions Of Brandy And Quinine,
Feared Our Supplies Were Not Enough, And Sent Us More.
We could not get the Sultan's men to chum with the Wanguana
proper; they were shy, like wild animals
- Built their huts by
themselves - and ate and talked by themselves, for they felt
themselves inferiors; and I had to nominate one of their number
to be their chief, answerable for the actions of the whole.
Being in the position of "boots" to the camp, the tending of
goats fell to their lot. Three goats were missing this evening,
which the goatherds could not account for, nor any of their men.
Suspecting that they were hidden for a private feast, I told
their chief to inquire farther, and report. The upshot was, that
the man was thrashed for intermeddling, and came back only with
his scars. This was a nice sort of insubordination, which of
course could not be endured. The goatherd was pinioned and
brought to trial, for the double offence of losing the goats and
rough-handling his chief. The tricking scoundrel - on quietly
saying he could not be answerable for other men's actions if they
stole goats, and he could not recognise a man as his chief whom
the Sheikh, merely by a whim of his own, thought proper to
appoint - was condemned to be tied up for the night with the
prospect of a flogging in the morning.
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