178 
TIIE miLIMA-NJAEO EXPEDITION. 
side might have been disastrous ; for Mandara’s weary 
men began to waver, and seemed to think of going 
home and leaving me to settle the conflict, and my own 
men were not only worn out with their previous night’s 
walk, but were further tired by our long tramp to the 
field of battle. We should therefore have been unfitted 
to withstand the impetuous rush of two or three 
hundred men. However, the Wa-kiboso were content 
to stand on the defensive. They were curious and 
anxious to see what tactics the white man would follow, 
with what new kind of sorcery he would war - against 
them. The white man was proposing meanwhile to a 
dissentient group of followers a grand charge up the 
hill, which should carry the enemy’s positions, and 
drive them off in headlong flight. Had he been backed 
up by the hundred and twenty-one men around him, 
this plan would doubtless have ended in a signal vic¬ 
tory ; but as no one except his Indian servant acceded 
to it, he felt that under those circumstances a grand 
charge of two would lack sufficient moral effect. During 
these deliberations the sun was sinking below the 
purple mass of Mount Meru, and I resolved to fall back 
on a rather fantastical method I had preconceived of 
scattering my enemies, and striking effectual terror 
into their foolish hearts. I moved my men on to the 
crown of a small hillock which faced the hill-top 
whereon the ranks of Wa-kiboso stood in savage array. 
Before darkness fell my men had planted several stout 
poles on the summit of our hillock, and had further 
erected a kind of rough platform of boughs, on which 
a few of the leather capes of Mandara’s men were 
spread, to make a smooth surface. Then I called for 
the mysterious case I had packed and brought with 
me from my settlement. Only my servant, Yirapan, 
