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,
* 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 has 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, G-addum Her. The latter
has received a practical proof that the boy is growing
strong, as I found him the other day improving her
style of beauty by sitting astride upon her stomach and
punching her eyes with his fists, as she lay upon the
ground furrowing Saat’s fat cheeks with her very dirty
nails. I t is only fair to the boy to say that Gaddum
Her is always the aggressor.
“ I t is absurd to see the self-importance of the
miserable cut-throats belonging to Koorshid’s party,
who, far too great to act as common soldiers, swagger
about with little slave boys in attendance, who carry
their muskets. I often compare the hard lot of our
honest poor in England with that of these scoundrels,