36o NATIVES OF EASTERN BRITISH EAST AFRICA part in 



given loads and told to carry them, they professed to be disappointed. 

 At Witu they struck, and one or two were flogged until they con- 

 sented to carry loads. No amount of flogging, however, would give 

 the men the necessary personal strength. They broke down under the 

 work; malaria at Ngatana found a suitable soil in their weakened 

 bodies ; they died, or were so enfeebled by disease, that the whole 

 contingent had to be sent back to the coast, as it was useless to insist 

 on their going on. 



The costly experiment, therefore, failed absolutely ; this was prob- 

 ably due to the fact that the men were badly selected, but it is very 

 doubtful whether Abyssinians would ever compete with the Zanzibari in 

 efficiency, and they certainly could not in economy. 



The reason for the employment of an Abyssinian contingent seems 

 also to have been fallacious. It was thought that, as the expedition 

 would pass near some of the so-called " sacred cities " of Somaliland, 

 the priests might preach a holy war against us, and our Somali escort 

 refuse to fight. Recent experience, however, seems to show that such 

 a danger was imaginary. The Somali themselves are tolerant of 

 Christians, though fanatical in the practice of their own creed. More- 

 over, the various tribes of Somali are divided against themselves ; 

 hence an escort from the coast can be relied on, both from friendship 

 and interest, to make common cause \vith their European leader, instead 

 of deserting him at the bidding of their compatriots. In fact, coast 

 Somali would probably have no more objection to fighting inland tribes 

 of their own race, than of any other, provided the risks were not 

 too great and the prospects of booty good. Less, however, was known 

 about the interior of Somaliland in 1892 than is known to-day; and 

 the organisers of the expedition did not think it advisable to entrust 

 the whole defence of the caravan to Somali. Soudanese could not 

 be obtained ; Abyssinians were selected, mainly because they are 

 Christians, and therefore were expected to be all the more faithful 

 to us. Later on, however, we found that, as they themselves expressed 

 it, they were very different Christians from ourselves ; and it is doubtful 

 whether the religious bond would have counted for anything. They 

 refused to eat meat we had shot, or to drink beef-tea made from 

 material prepared in England. Several of them died rather than take 

 such food, at a time when they were so ill that they could take no 

 other. In many ways they afforded us an illustration of Buckle's con- 

 tention that " in every page of history we meet with fresh evidence of 

 the little effect religious doctrines can produce upon a people, unless 

 preceded by intellectual culture. . . . The characteristics of the 

 creed are overpowered by the characteristics of the people ; and the 

 national faith is, in the most important points, altogether inoperative, 

 [if] it does not harmonise with the civilisation of the country in which 

 it is established." ^ 



1 H. T. Buckle, Hist. Civilis. EngUuid (ed. 1885), vol. i. pp. 261, 266. 



