II 



TRAVELS m EASTERN- AFRICA 



57 



of his men. The first instinct, therefore, is to humour 

 them as much as possible, and thereby firmly bind 

 their affections to the interests of their master. But 

 I had found to my extreme disgust, upon questioning 

 my men after enlistment, that but twenty-three of them 

 had been on an expedition before. With this rabble 

 of youths which I had at my command, such was their 

 lawlessness and wanton abuse of the natives, that I was 

 forced to adopt more severe measures than I liked. 



In the short period intervening between our start 

 from Lamoo and our departure from Tuni we had lost 

 nine men and two valuable loads by desertions. I had 

 discovered from the behaviour of Mohamadi at Sissini, 

 when he went back in search of the runaways, that I 

 could not trust even my headmen to treat the natives 

 with consideration, when not under my eye. On the 

 march my Soudanese were required to prevent the 

 porters from deserting, and my Somali had their time 

 fully occupied with the camels ; so that I had no trust- 

 worthy means for the apprehension of deserters while 

 on the march. 



We left Tuni on November 7, Lieutenant von 

 Hohnel again going with the river column. We ar- 

 ranged to meet at a point three days' journey up the 

 river. On this day two men deserted, and three others 

 made repeated attempts to do likewise. My porters 

 were all armed, and from this point carried ten rounds 

 of ammunition per man. In one instance, the would-be 

 deserter, upon finding himself tracked to his hiding-place 

 by George and the Soudanese, slipped a cartridge into 

 his rifle, and aimed it at the chief of the Soudanese. 

 He was disarmed by a man crawling behind him. That 



