A FIGHT WITH THE TUBUS 15 



women with anxious looks walked wearily, balancing round 

 baskets on their heads and carrying their babies slung upon 

 their backs. Cattle and sheep and goats moved in their 

 clouds of dust, through which men and boys darted up and 

 down in their efforts to shepherd the flocks through the wind- 

 ings of the bush. It was a strange, picturesque pilgrimage ; 

 in the throng there travelled pale-faced Fulani, Hausas 

 from Sokoto, handsome dark-skinned people from Melle 

 and Timbuctoo, and many mallams, turbaned and clothed 

 in white, walked calm and heedless of all danger, incessantly 

 telling their beads. Also, there were the wounded of the 

 recent fight, some held up on donkeys and others limping 

 along, while an old warrior was led by his son, groping 

 and totally blind, for a Tubu spear had gouged out both 

 his eyes. 



Just outside Bulturi we crossed the scene of the Kachella's 

 fight, where a horrible stench arose from the swollen and 

 rotting carcases of the horses that had fallen victims to the 

 poisoned arrows of the enemy.* 



* The effect of the poisoned arrows is very deadly and sudden. In a few 

 minutes the victim is thrown into convulsions, to which he quickly succumbs 

 with discoloration and swelling of the body. The mallams hold the secret of an 

 antidote to the poison, and this they impart to the big chiefs, who are thereby 

 rendered proof against its powers. It is in the form of a liquid drug which acts 

 as a preventive, and fighting-men like our Kachella, who are always more or 

 less running the risk of poisoned arrows, take a daily dose. So they are enabled 

 to stand out pre-eminent in daring among their warriors and can lead a charge as 

 dangerous as that of the Kachella without the otherwise absolute cei'tainty of 

 death. The antidote is also given to their favourite horses, but with them its 

 protective effect is not at all certain. There are many false mallams, who pre- 

 tend to possess the secret drug and by spurious imitations drive a large trade 

 with the natives, which they can of course carry on for a long time with small 

 chances of being found out, for their patrons are hardly likely to show their 

 faith in the drug by putting it to the test of running purposely against a poisoned 

 arrow, and when one happens to come their way, it hardly leaves them time to 

 institute proceedings against the mallam for fraudulent misrepresentation. 



