256 SAAT BECOMES SCIENTIFIC. [chap. ix. 
die. He said that the losses inflicted upon the various 
tribes by the Turks were ruinous, as their chief means 
of subsistence was destroyed; without cattle they 
could procure no wives; milk, their principal diet, was 
denied them, and they were driven to despair; thus 
they would fight for their cattle, although they would 
allow their families to be carried off without resistance ; 
cattle would procure another family, but if the animals 
were stolen, there would be no remedy. 
Flies by day, rats and innumerable bugs by night, 
heavy dew, daily rain, and impenetrable reeking grass, 
rendered Obbo a prison about as disagreeable as could 
exist. 
The many months of tiresome inaction that I was 
forced to remain in this position, I will not venture to 
inflict upon the reader, but I will content myself with 
extracts from my journal from time to time, that will 
exhibit the general character of the situation. 
“ Aug. 2d .—Several of my men have fever ; the 
boy Saat, upon receiving a dose of calomel, asked, 
4 whether he was to swallow the paper in which it was 
wrapped ? * This is not the first time that I have been 
asked the same question by my men. Saat feels the 
ennui of Obbo, and finds it difficult to amuse himself ; 
he lias accordingly become so far scientific, that he has 
investigated the machinery of two of my watches, 
both of which he has destroyed. I am now reduced 
to one watch, the solitary survivor of four that 
formed my original family of timekeepers. Having 
commenced as a drummer, Saat feels the loss of his 
drum that was smashed by the camel; he accordingly 
keeps his hand in by practising upon anything that he 
can adapt to that purpose, the sacred kettle inverted, 
and a tin cup having been drummed until the one 
became leaky, and the bottom of the other disappeared. 
“ Saat and the black woman are, unfortunately, 
enemies, and the monotony of the establishment is 
sometimes broken by a stand-up fight between him 
and his vicious antagonist, Gaddum Her. The latter 
