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I waited some days for the Nassick boys, who are behind, though we could not buy any food except at enormous prices and long distances off. 7th June, 1866. The havildar and two sepoys came up with Abraham, but Richard, a Nassick boy, is still behind from weakness. I sent three off to help him with the only cordials we could muster.
It is difficult to feel charitably to fellows whose scheme seems to have been to detach the Nassick boys from me first, then, when the animals were all killed, the Johanna men, afterwards they could rule me as they liked, or go back and leave me to perish; but I shall try to feel as charitably as I can in spite of it all, for the mind has a strong tendency to brood over the ills of travel.
I suggested that he might come after he had married a wife, but I fear very much that unless some European would settle, none of these Nassick boys will come to this country. It would be decidedly better if they were taught agriculture in the simplest form, as the Indian. Mataka would have liked to put his oxen to use, but Abraham could not help him with that.
Moaning seems a favourite way of spending the time with some sick folk. For the sake of the warmth, I allowed a Nassick boy to sleep in my house; he and I had the same complaint, dysentery, and I was certainly worse than he, but did not moan, while he played at it as often as he was awake.
Nearly all the sepoys had fever, but it is easily cured; they never required to stop marching, and we cannot make over four or five miles a day, which movement aids in the cure. In all cases of fever removal from the spot of attack should be made: after the fever among the sepoys, the Nassick boys took their turn along with the Johannees. 18th April, 1866.
Desolation. Tattooing. Ornamental teeth. Singular custom. Death of the Nassick boy, Richard. A sad reminiscence. 1st May, 1866. We now came along through a country comparatively free of wood, and we could move on without perpetual cutting and clearing.
I could not get the people of the country to go back; nor could I ask the Nassick boys, who had been threatened by the sepoys with assassination, and it was the same with the Johanna men, because, though Mahometans, the sepoys had called them Caffirs, &c., and they all declared, "We are ready to do anything for you, but we will do nothing for these Hindis."
We are about 2' south and by west of the confluence Ngomano. Lat. 11° 26' 23" S.; long. 37° 40' 52" E. Abraham, one of the Nassick boys, came up and said he had been sent by the sepoys, who declared they would come no further.
The sepoys had now made themselves such an utter nuisance that I felt that I must take the upper hand with them, so I called them up this morning, and asked if they knew the punishment they had incurred by disobeying orders, and attempting to tamper with the Nassick boys to turn them back.
I left the havildar, sepoys, and Nassick boys here in order to make a forced march forward, where no food is to be had, and send either to the south or westwards for supplies, so that after they have rested the animals and themselves five days they may come.
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