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Updated: June 8, 2025
We were now in an elevated country on the range of mountains dividing the lower lands of Latooka from the high lands of Obbo. We arrived at the summit of the pass about 2,500 feet above the Latooka valley. In addition to the wild flowers were numerous fruits, all good; especially a variety of custard apple, and a full-flavoured yellow plum. The grapes were in most promising bunches, but unripe.
The gorgeous colours, as the carpet was unfolded, produced a general exclamation before the effect of astonishment wore off, I had a basket unpacked, and displayed upon a cloth a heap of superb necklaces, that we had prepared while at Obbo, of the choicest beads, many as large as marbles, and glittering with every colour of the rainbow.
It was most galling to be a hanger-on to this company of traders, who tolerated me for the sake of presents, but who hated me in their hearts. One afternoon some natives suddenly arrived from a country named Obbo with presents from their chief for the Turks, and also for me.
It was also "the thing" to wear six or eight polished rings of iron, fastened so tightly round the throat as almost to choke the wearer, and somewhat resembling dog-collars. For months we dragged on a miserable existence at Obbo, wrecked by fever. The quinine was exhausted; thus the disease worried me almost to death, returning at intervals of a few days.
I was riding "Filfil," my best horse for speed, but utterly useless for the gun. I had a common regulation-sword hanging on my saddle in lieu of the long Arab broadsword that I had lost at Obbo, and starting at full gallop at the same instant as the giraffes, away we went over the beautiful park.
In four days' march we reached the Asua River, and on January 13th arrived at Shooa, in latitude 3 degrees 4'. Two days after our arrival at Shooa all of our Obbo porters absconded.
No, no! let them wait if they don't bring me supplies of corn, goats, fowls, yams, merissa, and all that I require, not one drop of rain shall ever fall again in Obbo! Impudent brutes are my people! Do you know, they have positively threatened to kill me unless I bring the rain? They shan't have a drop; I will wither the crops, and bring a plague upon their flocks.
On arrival at the base of the mountains, instead of crossing them as before, we skirted the chain to the northwest, and then rounding through a natural gap, we ascended gradually towards the south. On the fifth day we were, at 5 A.M., within twelve miles of Obbo, and we bivouacked on a huge mass of granite on the side of a hill, forming an inclining plateau of about an acre.
They allowed five days' march for the distance to Obbo by the intended route. This was not an alluring programme for the week's entertainment, with my wife almost in a dying state! However, I set to work, and fitted an angarep with arched hoops from end to end, so as to form a frame like the cap of a wagon.
Baker, who had been the representative of the expedition at Obbo during my absence. Upon my approach through the forest, my well-known whistle was immediately answered by the appearance of the boy Saat, who, without any greeting, immediately rushed to the hut to give the intelligence that "Master was arrived." I found my wife looking remarkably well, and regularly installed "at home."
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