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"A day's march being concluded, the sheikh and Bombay arrange the camp, issuing cloths to the porters for the purchase of rations, the tents are pitched, the Hottentots cook, some look after the mules and donkeys, others cut boughs for huts and fencing, while the Beloochs are supposed to guard the camp, but prefer gossiping and brightening their arms, while Captain Grant kills two buck antelopes to supply the larder."
So you see you now possess the inestimable privilege of wearing a red coat; and what is still better, of getting a hole made in it; for there is great trouble threatening with the Affghans and Beloochs, and the chances are that you will smell powder before you are up in your regimental duties.
On the 9th of July, 1858, he was able to start his caravan, consisting of twenty porters, ten Beloochs, and his servants.
As warfare was going on, it was necessary to make a tortuous track to avoid the combatants. The jemadar and two Beloochs complained of sickness and declared they could not march, and poor Gaetano fell ill and hid himself in the jungle, being thus left behind. Men were sent off to search for him, and the next day the Beloochs brought him in, looking exactly like a naughty dog going to be punished.
The two chief men, besides Said, were Bombay and Baraka, who commanded the Zanzibar men. Fifty carbines were distributed among the elder men of the party, and the sheikh was armed with a double-barrelled rifle, given to him by Captain Speke. The sultan also sent, as a guard of honour, twenty-five Beloochs, with an officer, to escort them as far as Uzaramo, the country of the Wazaramo.
The Beloochs were, from the first, sulky and difficult to manage, while the pagazis, or porters, played all sorts of tricks, sometimes leaving their loads and running off to amuse themselves, and in the evening they would dance and sing songs composed for the occasion, introducing everybody's name, and especially Mzimza, the wise or white man, ending with the prevailing word, among these curly-headed bipeds, of "Grub! grub! grub!"
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