480 LETTERS TO DR. SCHWEINFURTH. 



Finally, on March 31, I was rejoiced to hear that three 

 officers from Amadi, with about 260 men, had arrived safely 

 at Wandi in Makraka. The troops recalled three months 

 ago from Monbuttu had also reached Makraka at the very 

 last moment, after their commander had put off the march, 

 under all sorts of empty pretences, but really in conse- 

 quence of letters sent to him by the rebels on the Bahr-el- 

 Ghazal, urging him to wait for the course of events. Certainly 

 the incapacity, and often the downright malevolence, of our own 

 officials have played a great part in all the misfortunes that 

 have hitherto befallen us. Disobedience is the order of the 

 day, and every one seeks to protect his own interests only. 



On April 1 the civil and military officers in Lado handed me 

 a document, wherein they petitioned that all the stations in the 

 south should be given up, and that we should restrict ourselves 

 to the line from Lado to Kiri. Suicidal as such a suggestion 

 was, for we should then be confined to the most unfruitful part 

 of the province, and consequently throw ourselves into the 

 jaws of famine, besides cutting ourselves off from the only way 

 of retreat which would at last be open to us — unfortunate as 

 this motion was, persuasion would have effected little, and so I 

 had to give at least an apparent consent, and issue the neces- 

 sary orders. 



According to the last news that has reached us, the Danagla 

 had sent off skirmishing parties to within two days' march 

 of Lado, in order to incite the Negroes against us, and had 

 then concentrated themselves in Amadi. Letters also arrived 

 from Keremallah and Osman Effendi on April 3. The first, 

 a soi-disant official despatch, told me of the events that had 

 taken place in and around Amadi, said that the garrison, 

 though summoned five times to surrender, had refused, that 

 then the siege was commenced, and that finally the soldiers 

 had forced their way through, and had taken the road to 

 Makraka. Murjan Aga, the commander of Amadi, accom- 

 panied by the lieutenant Rabih Aga, had been overtaken on 

 the way, and both had been slain, their heads being taken 

 to Amadi. More than two hundred deserters, Dragomans, 

 basinger, &c, were in Amadi, besides many soldiers and 

 officers. The letter concluded with a summons to appear at 



