WHAT THE COUNTRY LOOKS LIKE 
3 1 
When there is no longer any doubt about the result the native allies, who 
have hung on the outskirts of the white man’s camp, dash forward in skirmish¬ 
ing order to cut off the fugitives. They are a motley crowd, these “ friendlies,” 
armed with flint-locks, muzzle-loading guns, old pistols, or with spear and 
assegai, bow and arrow. It would be difficult to tell them from the opposing 
force—for the auxiliaries of the Arab are often own brothers to the white man’s 
helpers—but that each “friendly” has a large piece of white cloth tied round 
the upper part of his left arm. The chief efforts of the Europeans and the 
Sikhs are now directed towards restraining these inconvenient allies who would 
seek to perpetrate on the flying enemy, or on his wounded, the same barbarities 
that the Arabs and their followers recently inflicted on the tribes allied with the 
European—which barbarities are the cause of the white man’s presence here 
to-day with a country at his back to help him. 
War is always horrible, even if it be waged in a righteous cause, and 
nowhere so horrible as in savage Africa. Let us, as a useful lesson, pick our 
way through this bombarded town as far as the heat of the still burning houses 
will permit. Here amongst the black ashes of a hut is a poor, domestic cat 
frizzled into a ghastly mummy and close to her are numerous broiled rats : all 
alike were unable to escape in time from the burning building. High above 
our heads—for some reason I think the saddest sight of all—are the homeless 
pigeons, circling round and round unable to settle on the burning roof trees, 
dazed and stupefied with the smoke and occasionally falling down into the 
flames to die. Shrieking fowls are flying in all directions and after them 
excited “friendlies” or porters of the expedition in pursuit, heedless of the hot 
ashes under foot. Our first dead body: a negro soldier of the Administration, 
neatly clad, spick and span in spite of his scramble over the eight-foot wall. 
Soon after entering the town he must have been shot dead and he has fallen 
on his back still grasping his rifle and, strange to say, with a faint smile of 
triumph and no look of pain whatever on the face. A little distance beyond 
him lies a wretched savage who has been killed by a shell. His stomach has 
been torn out and his head split in two. Here and there a black arm or leg 
or a dead face with wide-open eyes may be descried amongst the debris of the 
huts, indicating the presence of others who have fallen in the fight. The doctor 
will presently come and search the shattered huts in case there may be any 
wounded and living requiring attention. 
We have now reached the centremost stronghold of the town, and it is seen 
that great as the conflagration appeared from the outside it has destroyed 
but a small portion of the town. The Sikhs are now busily engaged in 
isolating the burning huts and putting out the fire. The officers have been 
examining the large houses around the Sultan’s compound and have brought 
to light an extraordinary number of wretched women and children most of 
them slaves—the adults both men and women—still weighted with the slave 
stick. 1 
Many of these slaves are entirely naked and utterly barbarous, and all are 
whimpering, not with joy at the prospect of freedom but in the imminent dread 
that they will be immediately killed and eaten by the white men, that being the 
idea implanted in their minds by the Arab. A little apart from the great mass 
1 The slave stick is usually a young tree of heavy wood barked and all the branches removed with 
the exception of a bifurcation at the end. Into this bifurcation the slave’s neck is thrust and the two ends 
of the stick are united by an iron band at the back of his neck so that this heavy log is attached to the 
front of the man’s body. In this condition he is quite unable to run away. 
