31st. - To-Day Mahamed Came In, And Commenced To Arrange For The
March Onwards.
This, however, was no easy matter, for the Turks
alone required six hundred porters - half that number to carry
Their ivory, and the other half to carry their beds and bedding;
whilst from fifty to sixty men was the most a village had to
spare, and all the village chiefs were at enmity with one
another. The plan adopted by Mahamed was, to summon the heads of
all the villages to come to him, failing which, he would seize
all their belongings. Then, having once got them together, he
ordered them all to furnish him with so many porters a-head,
saying he demanded it of them, for the "great government's
property" could not be left on the ground. Their separate
interests must now be sacrificed, and their feuds suspended: and
if he heard, on his return again, that one village had taken
advantage of the other's weakness caused by their employment in
his service, he would then not spare his bullets, - so they might
look out for themselves.
Some of the Turks, having found ninty-nine eggs in a crocodile's
nest, had a grand feast. They gave us two of the eggs, which we
ate, but did not like, for they had a highly musky flavour.
1st. - On the 1st of February we went ahead again, with Bukhet and
the first half of Mahamed's establishment, as a sufficient number
of men could not be collected at once to move all together.
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