CH. x1 WITH BRITISH MISSION TO KING MENELIK 269 
the immediate foreground, we saw approaching some two hundred 
Europeans, unarmed and dressed in khaki uniforms, escorted by 
a few blacks carrying rifles. The Europeans, some of whom 
were mounted, proved to be an instalment of the two thousand 
Italian prisoners released by Menelik by treaty. They were in 
splendid health, and glad to be getting home after a year’s 
captivity. It was rather startling to see so many white men in 
the bush, where hitherto even one had been a rarity; and it 
made me realise how the wildest places are being opened up. 
At Biyo Kaboba we met another instalment, and found a camp 
of the Italian Red Cross Mission, under Captain Bracco. 
It had been arranged that we should get our mules at Gil- 
dessa, but when we reached Gel Dabbal we received a letter 
from Ras Makunan to say they would not be ready, though he 
was doing his best; so at nightfall I posted ahead on a fast 
camel, with my faithful headman Adan Yusuf and one Indian 
lancer, mounted on ponies. We covered the intervening forty- 
four miles by next morning, having slept for an hour by the 
roadside with our saddles for pillows. 
As we neared Gildessa we caught an Esa shepherd, whom we 
sent on to announce our arrival; and Aito Merzha, the 
Abyssinian Governor of Gildessa, met me, in such state as he 
could muster, firing volleys under the dark thorn-trees which 
grow at the side of the river-bed. I could not help reflecting 
how different were the conditions now from those of my last 
visit five years before, when with my brother I had to retire 
our little force by night, covered by rearguard and flankers, 
expecting attack from Dago, the then governor. 
Aito Merzha put me up in his own guard-hut, situated on 
the kopje which overlooks the town, and allowed the Indian 
sowar to sleep inside the door of-the hut. An interview of some 
hours elicited the information that although no mules were to 
be had, three hundred donkeys and eighteen dark Dankali hill 
camels were available. 
The Mission arrived next day, the envoy being received with 
more ball-cartridge under the trees; and the morrow found us 
loading our new transport animals and sending them off in 
batches under Aito Merzha’s Abyssinian muleteers and police. 
The plump condition of the donkeys enabled us to get up the 
passes to Harar in a little over two days, with, I think, not a 
single galled back—a contrast to the mule-transport we were to get 
later on. Of the ascent to Harar, the most lasting impressions are 
