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Updated: May 20, 2025
The breeze was now dying away, the wind blowing off shore; and the Somalis, seeing this, triced up their lateen sails, turning round like rats driven up into a corner and facing us, at bay.
This was already all ablaze from the rockets and bursting shells of the admiral's brigade, the straw-thatched houses as they looked, though they were really covered with dry plantain and banana leaves, burning up like so many fierce bonfires in our front, and right and left; while the sharp rattle of musketry and loud banging of the guns of the first division was mixed up with the platoon-like reports from the matchlocks of the Somalis, who were urging on their somewhat reluctant allies, the slave-traders of the interior, with hoarse yells and shrill screams, bolstering up their courage likewise by the beating of innumerable gongs and clashing cymbals, the consensus of sound making din enough to have wakened up all the dead dervishes of the desert for generations past, and caused them, had they come to life, to have proclaimed a `Jehad' or holy war against us, and thus roused up all the fanaticism of all those of the Moslem race yet left alive!
Their real use is as a trading medium for more cattle! Certain white men and Somalis conduct regular trading expeditions into Masailand, bringing in small herds of cows bought with trade goods from the other tribes. These they barter with the Masai for sheep. In Masai estimation a cow is the most valuable thing on earth, while a sheep is only a medium of exchange.
I will tell you how this was. Not many months after our smashing up the Arabs and driving the Somalis out of the British protectorate back to their own inhospitable country, the Mermaid's commission expired; when, instead of the cruiser going home to be paid off, a new crew was sent out to us from England, she still remaining on the station, in accordance with the routine at present in vogue.
It struck the spear from the rascal's hand, and, before he could recover himself, Guy and Canaris had dragged Melton to the top of the wall by a prodigious effort. "Down, down!" cried Canaris, and as they crouched low three or four spears went over their heads and a hoarse shout of rage went up from the baffled Somalis that was caught up and repeated far back into the town.
The second cutter, however, came off the worst, Mr Doyle, our junior lieutenant, having been shot through the lungs with a jagged matchlock ball in the desperate hand-to-hand fighting that ensued on her first attack, which the Somalis repulsed, twelve more men of her complement, besides, being either killed or wounded.
Striking out with our cutlasses, we soon cleared a circle round the lieutenant; and then, forming up like a breastwork in front of him, we rushed at the remaining Somalis in the bows, hurling over into the sea, with the impetus of our charge, those whom we did not cut down outright, or settle with a thrust from our straight-edged blades.
These classes own the estates, the ships, and the trade. To these classes bow the half-caste and the negro. The next most important people who go to make up the mixed population of this island are the negroes. They consist of the aborigines, Wasawahili, Somalis, Comorines, Wanyamwezi, and a host of tribal representatives of Inner Africa.
Poor little Dabby, though, was shot dead while entering the breach the shell of our nine-pounder had made in the outer palisade that protected the Arab defences; and then, finding a second fence composed of similar baulks of timber in front of us, as strong as that we had surmounted, and that the fire of the Somalis increased the nearer we got to them, our chaps, staggered by the fall of poor Dabby, I must confess it, all at once began to cut and run!
The sun was not up yet, and the blue waters of the gulf stretched afar until lost in the pale mist. In the harbor lay the two steamers, but the British flag no longer floated over their decks. Finally they were led through a curious rabble of Arabs and Somalis to the outskirts of the town, where the caravan was in process of formation. It was no ordinary caravan.
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