30 WITH THE ADVANCE GUARD TO THE TANA part i 



only eight men ; they were so exhausted by exposure that it 

 would not have been fair to set them to work at once on the 

 erection of a boma. So we waited, keeping watch on one side 

 of the river for the reinforcements and stores which it had been 

 promised should follow at once, and on the other side for the 

 Southern division of the expedition. 



On the 27th my messenger returned with a letter from 

 Harris, stating that his men were all at Borabini, a mission- 

 station some miles down the river, where they were blocked by 

 floods. He was in urgent need of food for his men, as the 

 stores sent by our chief had been wrongly addressed and had 

 failed to reach him. It was obvious from this that they 

 were not coming up the river at present. This placed me in 

 rather a difficulty. We were being watched by the spies of the 

 rebel chief, Fumo Omari, who was anxious to capture our 

 cartridges, sixty thousand of which were being sent up the 

 Tana in canoes. It appeared to me highly probable that if 

 this bait were offered to the rebels they would strike for it, 

 and I could not hope to resist their attack with my present 

 force ; I therefore engaged a mau, loaded it with sacks of 

 rice for Harris's men, and rushed down the river to meet the 

 ammunition. 



A long day's canoe journey took me to the German 

 Lutheran mission -station at Ngao, then under the charge of 

 Herr Beking, who told me a pathetic story of its past history. 



After much trouble the missionaries had succeeded in gain- 

 ing leave to settle there. A house was then erected on a spur 

 on the left bank of the river, to be destroyed in one night by a 

 flood which simply swept away the whole site of the station. 

 A better locality was chosen on the right bank, and the 

 missionaries set to work to rebuild the house. Then Frau 

 Beking died. The station was finished ; and shortly after- 

 wards the Witu rebellion broke out, when the missionaries had 

 to fly to the coast to save their lives. The buildings were 

 burnt down and the plantations devastated. With splendid 

 patience the station had been rebuilt for the third time, but 

 Herr Beking said he did not know how long it would last. 

 He told me the people were then all anxious to turn Christians, 

 but from purely political motives. They said they were now 

 European subjects and they must learn the European religion. 



