VI 
RETURN TO MOMBASA 
125 
slope above, and Dr. Kolb shot it from just outside the “ boma.” 
I did not even then notice any difference in it from the “ roi 
rheboks ” of the south, but I have since learned that a specimen 
which Mr. Chanler had taken home has been deemed new, and 
named after him. But the curious thing about this buck is 
that I have never seen it anywhere but on that particular 
isolated crater koppie, and the natives there said there were 
none elsewhere, as far as they knew. I do not assert that 
there are none on any of the other hills, but it is a strange 
thing that I never came across any, and they must, at all events, 
be very rare. 
Fortunately for us, we had not much more rain after we 
started, and the moon, being at the full, was favourable to our 
somewhat hazardous undertaking. It sounds presumptuous 
to talk of going among a tribe numbering thousands with a 
handful of men to exact retribution, but it is not to be shirked 
if the country is to be safe for us, and I always aim at leaving 
it so for the next traveller. The method we adopted to chastise 
the inhabitants of the district where my men had been killed 
was to seize a number of their sheep and goats, and these we 
slaughtered and left in a heap among their burnt kraals. I 
suggested this because I did not want them to think that 
raiding, for the sake of plunder, was any part of our object, 
though two or three cows and a few donkeys which we captured 
we thought ourselves justified in keeping. They made no 
determined attack upon us, thanks, I fancy, mainly to the awe 
the wonderful powers of our long-range rifles inspired ; for we 
could easily disperse any threatening body of warriors, collected 
anywhere within sight, by firing one or two shots. The night 
was an anxious and sleepless time ; but having taken every 
possible precaution, it passed without any attempt to rush us. 
In the morning we descended by a difficult defile, not without 
dread of ambuscades, but not a native showed himself, and, the 
day after, we camped at Mthara. 
The result of this action showed I was right. After this, 
