220 MEET THE KAFILAH 



distance of about half a mile from our camp, 

 eastward. 



The people of both Kafilahs soon mixed with 

 each other with the best feeling imaginable, inter- 

 changing salutes and repeating to each other the 

 most important news from their respective starting- 

 places. The new-comers had been thirty-eight days 

 from Shoa, and at a day's journey on this side of 

 the Hawash, had been attacked by the Hittoo Galla, 

 who had killed two of the Kafilah men, and seven 

 of the smallest children of the slaves, for these 

 unfortunates are always murdered, if their captors 

 in such forays find it impossible, as in this instance, 

 to carry them away. Several of the Galla were 

 also slain. News of the British Embassy I could 

 not obtain, except that the last detachment of stores 

 had got safely up, and that the Has ul Kafilah on 

 that occasion, Mahomed Allee, was now at the head 

 of the present return one. I was also told that 

 forty of the slaves belonged to him, and that they 

 had been given to him by our Ambassador in Shoa. 

 Such was the report, but of course I understood 

 this properly, that the money Mahomed Allee had 

 received for his services he had laid out in the pur- 

 chase of slaves, in the like manner that Ohmed 

 Mahomed and Ebin Izaak, were taking up with me 

 to Shoa, the dollars paid to them in Tajourah by 

 Mr. Cruttenden, to invest in the same revolting 

 merchandise. 



The principal men of either Kafilah were now 



