INTRODUCTION xix 



men and several officers. Our fellow voyagers were commis- 

 sioned to take the places of the slain, and to reorganize 

 and stiffen the native soldiers. They have no European 

 troops on the coast, and were wholly dependent on what, 

 I fear, was a rather poor quality of native; to beat back, 

 in the first place, and then reduce to order, the rebellious 

 Somali they surely were not to be envied. The mon- 

 soon was only beginning, but already the big blue white- 

 capped rollers were thundering full into the unprotected 

 mouth of what was really no harbour at all. A small 

 coasting steamer, and some dhows, reared and tore at 

 their anchors, as though they would wrench their bows 

 out. And landing our friends, their scanty supply of am- 

 munition and stores, as well as their mules, taxed evidently 

 the resources of the place as well as those of the crew. 

 The leaky undecked dhow that came off for them, leaped 

 up and down alongside. The mules had, of course, to be 

 slung, and popped down into the hollow of the dhow 

 just at the right moment. The hold would be full of shout- 

 ing, gesticulating naked men, being shot up into the air, 

 when down would plump among them a very bewildered 

 mule, dropped sharply by the donkey engine. When there 

 were a lot of mules in that narrow hold, as well as a crowd 

 of men, it seemed nothing short of wonderful that every- 

 thing and everybody was not kicked to pieces. And the 

 rotten boat itself was so leaky that it looked as though 

 the turmoil within it would make it founder. Charming 

 men, and, no doubt, good officers, those Italians were. 

 But who could help feeling sorry for them, dropped down 

 in a little open port, into which no steamer could enter 

 till the monsoon blew on, that is, in three or four months' 

 time. Tl^jy could not receive mails or reinforcements 

 by sea, and on land the Somali had so infested and harassed 

 the place, that no mail runner had got through from Juba 

 for months. 



