Burgan, that raiding along the banks of the Tana
must cease, I doubt if he ever delivered my message.
After this little experience I returned to my camp
at Tuni, having acquired but little satisfactory information,
and a sharp attack of fever.
While at Tuni two of my men deserted. One of the
most difficult phases of African travel is the desire, latent
in nearly every porter, to desert at one time or another
during an expedition. There are but few porters employed
on the east coast of Africa who have not at
some period in their career tasted the sweets of French
leave. 1 have questioned many of them, but they,
themselves, could give no reason for their desertion.
Generally, if closely pressed, they would laugh, shrug
their shoulders, and say: “ Nimechoka, bwana” (1 was
tired, master). Sometimes a porter will work in a. caravan
an entire year, and then, without apparent cause,
when perhaps hundreds of miles from his home, will
desert; not only forfeiting all the pay he has earned,
but” running a very considerable risk of not reaching
the coast alive.
During my first journey into Africa 1 had but four
desertions from my caravan; which 1 attribute to the
fact that my porters were, for the most part, Wanyan-
wezi, a tribe inhabiting a section of the country about
300 miles south of Victoria Nyanza. Those men made
the best possible porters, and rarely, if ever, deserted.
In this expedition, however, I had succeeded in securing
but one of this tribe, and he proved one of the few
who remained faithful to the end. A traveller exploring
an unknown, portion of Africa is dependent for the
safety and success of his expedition upon the fidelity
of his men. The first instinct, therefore, is to humour
them as much as possible, and thereby firmly bind
their affections to the interests of their master. But
I had found to my extreme disgust, upon questioning
my men after enlistment, that but twenty-three of them
had been on an expedition before. With this rabble
of youths which I had at my command, such was their
lawlessness and wanton abuse of the natives, that I was
forced to adopt more severe measures than I liked.
In the short period intervening between our start
from Lamoo and our departure from Tuni we had lost
nine men and two valuable loads by desertions. I had
discovered from the behaviour of Mohamadi at Sissini,
when he went back in search of the runaways, that I
could not trust even my headmen to treat the natives
with consideration, when not under my eye. On the
march my Soudanese were required to prevent the
porters from deserting, and my Somali had their time
fully occupied with the camels; so that I had no trustworthy
means for the apprehension of deserters while
on the march.
We deft Tuni on November 7, Lieutenant von
Hohnel again going with the river column. We arranged
to meet at a point three days’ journey up the
river. On this day two men deserted, and three others
made repeated attempts to do likewise. My porters
were all armed, and from this point carried ten rounds
of ammunition per man. In one instance, the would-be
deserter, upon finding himself tracked to his hiding-place
by George and the Soudanese, slipped a cartridge into
his rifle, and aimed it at the chief of the Soudanese.
He was disarmed by a man crawling behind him. That