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Updated: May 22, 2025
There should be 200 men in four parties stationed at intervals along the line to direct the natives in opening the road. "A soldier deserted and ran away with his arms and ammunition to some distant village. I immediately called Wani and the old sheik Abbio, to whom I explained that I should hold them responsible if the deserter were not captured. They sent out natives in all directions in search.
I never saw such a wild pack of savages; they were only fit to carry the elephants' tusks of the traders; but any civilized baggage ran a risk of instant destruction. The old sheik, Abbio, had given me his son to keep order among the people.
The natives of Lobore soon began to collect, and the dragoman, Wani, shortly appeared, who proved to be an old acquaintance in my former journey. This man, who had been an interpreter when a boy among the traders, spoke good Arabic, and we soon felt quite at home. Abbio, the old sheik of Lobore appeared.
"February 14. The whole country turned out to hunt, and the natives returned in the evening, having only killed two buffaloes and a few small antelopes. Even the small boys are armed in this country with bows and barbed arrows, with which they shoot remarkably well. "February 15. The old sheik, Abbio, accompanied by Wani, appeared early, together with a considerable number of natives.
Upon our arrival at Fatiko, the son of sheik Abbio, of Lobore, would have absconded with all his people, had he not been retained by the troops. This man was responsible for the natives who had engaged themselves for the journey.
I left him in irons to be kept at hard labour by the sheik Abbio at Lobore, until I should return to the country. This is a good lesson to the troops. "The natives had a grand dance to-day; the men and women as usual naked, leaping, and yelling wild songs to an extraordinary accompaniment of music, produced by beating a long stick of extremely hard wood with a short stick of the same substance.
But determination did not blind him to prudence and policy. "Having learned that Wittikind and Abbio, another great Saxon chieftain, were abiding in the part of Saxony situated on the other side of the Elbe, he sent to them Saxon envoys to prevail upon them to renounce their perfidy, and come, without hesitation, and trust themselves to him.
The big nogara had sounded, the natives collected, and each man stood by his load; thus twenty-five gangs of twenty each should have stood in line. I now discovered that the vaunted honesty of the Lobore was of the same order as that of other negroes. Five hundred cows had been given to as many natives, for all of which the sheik Abbio had declared himself responsible.
"February 17. A slight shower fell this morning. The sheik of Mooge arrived to see me last evening, and presented a fat goat. "I am trying to persuade him and old Abbio to join in cutting the cart-road through the forest from Mooge. I gave Abbio a mixture of sulphate of zinc for his eyes, and put a mustard plaster on Wani the interpreter's stomach.
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