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Updated: June 4, 2025
However, our consultation ended in a determination to wait where we then were, until the caravan should have accomplished the last difficulty by crossing the ravine; when we would all march into Ellyria in company. For a long time we sat gazing at the valley before us in which our fate lay hidden, feeling thankful that we had thus checkmated the brutal Turks.
It would be merely necessary for the traders to request the chief of Ellyria to attack my party to insure its destruction, as the plunder of the baggage would be an ample reward. There was no time for deliberation. Both the present and the future looked as gloomy as could be imagined; but I had always expected extraordinary difficulties, and they were, if possible, to be surmounted.
I hardly liked to risk an advance into Ellyria alone before the arrival of my whole party, as we had been very rudely received by the Tollogo people on the previous evening; nevertheless I thought it might be good policy to ride unattended into Ellyria, and thus to court an introduction to the chief.
I considered their threats as mere idle boasting, to frighten me from an attempt to follow them; but there was another more serious cause of danger to be apprehended. On the route, between Gondokoro and Latooka, there was a powerful tribe among the mountains of Ellyria.
The chief understood a few words of Arabic, and I offered a large payment of copper bracelets and beads for a guide. After much discussion and bargaining, a bad-looking fellow offered to guide us to Ellyria, but no farther.
Accordingly they now wished to send parties to seek for water; this would entail a further delay, at a time when every minute was precious, as our fate depended upon reaching and passing through Ellyria before the arrival of the Turks.
At that time the Turks were engaged in business transactions with the natives; it was therefore all important that I should start immediately, and by a forced march arrive at Ellyria and get through the pass before they should communicate with the chief.
On the route between Gondokoro and Latooka there was a powerful tribe among the mountains of Ellyria. He was an ally of Koorshid's people, who declared that they would raise the tribe against me, which would end in the defeat or massacre of my party.
The whole of the village thus fenced is situated in the midst of a splendid forest of large timber. The inhabitants of Wakkala are the same as the Ellyria, but governed by an independent chief. They are great hunters; and as we arrived I saw several parties returning from the forest with portions of wild boar and buffalo.
The valley of Ellyria was about four hundred feet below, at about a mile distant. Beautiful mountains, some two or three thousand feet high, of grey granite, walled in the narrow vale; while the landscape of forest and plain was bounded at about fifty or sixty miles' distance to the east by the blue mountains of Latooka.
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