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Updated: May 19, 2025
The troops were in excellent spirits, the air was fresh and cool in this elevated country, the horses had been well groomed, and the arms and accoutrements had been burnished on the previous afternoon, in order to make a good appearance before my old friends the natives of Fatiko and Shooa.
The natives refuse to carry loads, and they transport an elephant's tusk by boring a hole in the hollow end, through which they attach a rope; it is then dragged along the ground by a donkey. The ivory is thus seriously damaged . . . . . Such was the position of affairs at Fatiko in March, 1872.
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.
They accordingly asked him for his pass from me, as it was well known that I never allowed a man to go alone without a written order. Lazim of course was unable to produce a paper. The natives, therefore, insisted upon his returning with them to Fatiko, and upon his remonstrating they seized him. A struggle ensued, and they at length knocked him upon the head with au iron mace and killed him.
"His envoys have now visited me at Fatiko, with the report that M'tese's messengers heard of you as having formerly been at Ujiji; but that you had left that station and crossed the Tanganyika to the west. "Nothing more is known of you. "I have sent a soldier with the envoys who convey this letter; he will remain with M'tese. "M'tese will take the greatest care of you.
The number of animals that are annually destroyed may be imagined from the amount of the skin-clad population. Although the wilderness between Unyoro and Fatiko is uninhabited, in like manner with extensive tracts between Fabbo and Fatiko, every portion of that apparently abandoned country is nominally possessed by individual proprietors, who claim a right of game by inheritance.
A fine little lad of about eleven years was killed by a leopard within a mile of my Fatiko station. The grass had been fired, and the animals instinctively knew that they were pursued. The boy went to drink at a stream close to some high reeds, when a leopard pounced upon him without the slightest warning.
Abou Saood's Fatiko station was crowded with slaves. His people were all paid in slaves. The stations of Fabbo, Faloro, and Farragenia were a mass of slaves. I did not enter a station to interfere with these wretched captives, as I knew that such an act would create irretrievable confusion. I had only 212 men, and I wished to advance to the equator.
There can be no doubt that these poor creatures never would have been returned to their country, had I not delivered them; but seeing their condition upon their arrival at Fatiko, I had ordered them to accompany me, and to show me the position of their homes during the march.
Although the Baris were at war with the government, Abou Saood had about seventy of these natives at Fatiko, armed with muskets, in his employ; thus he was openly in league with the enemies of the Khedive's government.
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