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Updated: June 27, 2025
You will all be welcomed upon your arrival at Katariff. Checkmate! My poor Tokrooris were in a corner, and in their great dilemma they could not answer a word. Taking advantage of this moment of confusion, I called forward "the buffalo," Abderachman, as I had heard that he really had contemplated a pilgrimage to Mecca. "Abderachman," I continued, "you are the only man who has spoken the truth.
But my Tokrooris, who were brave in some respects, had been so cowed by the horrible stories recounted of these common enemies at the nightly camp-fires by the Hamran Arabs, that they were seized with panic and resolved to desert en masse and return to Katariff, where I had originally engaged them, and at which place they had left their families.
The Tokrooris despise shields; therefore, in spite of their superior personal strength, they would be no match for the Arabs. There is a curious weapon, the trombash, that is used by these people, somewhat resembling the Australian boomerang; it is a piece of flat, hard wood, about two feet in length, the end of which turns sharply at an angle of about 30 degrees.
We remained in this beautiful country from March 29th until April 14th, during which time I seldom remained for an hour in camp, from sunrise to sunset; I was always in the saddle or on foot. Two of my best Tokrooris, Hadji Ali and Hassan, usually accompanied me on horseback, while Taher Noor and a couple of Arabs rode upon camels with a good supply of water.
I counted my people: nine camel-men, five Tokrooris, Taher Noor, and Bacheet; in all sixteen, without Wat Gamma. Three dollars were sixty piastres, sixty divided by sixteen equalled three piastres and thirty paras. Thus I condemned the whole party to make up the loss, by each paying his share of the amount stolen, unless the thief could be discovered.
This was a grand lion with a shaggy mane; but my rifle was unloaded, and, keeping my eyes fixed on the beast, I stretched my hand back for a spare rifle. The lion remained standing, but gazing up wind with his head raised, snuffing in the air for a scent of the enemy. No rifle was put in my hand. I looked back for an instant, and saw my Tokrooris faltering about five yards behind me.
We were passing through a mass of kittar and thorn-bush, almost hidden by the immensely high grass, when, as I was ahead of the party, I came suddenly upon the tracks of a rhinoceros; these were so unmistakeably recent that I felt sure we were not far from the animals themselves. As I had wished to fire the grass, I was accompanied by my Tokrooris, and my horse-keeper, Mahomet No. 2.
I engaged six strong Tokrooris natives of Darfur who agreed to accompany me for five months. These people are a tribe of Mahometan negroes, of whom I shall speak more hereafter; they are generally very powerful and courageous, and I preferred a few men of this race to a party entirely composed of Arabs.
I accordingly took Taher Noor, with Hadji Ali and Hassan, two of my trusty Tokrooris, and went straight to the spot where I had left the carcase of the buffalo. As I had expected, nothing remained not even a bone: the ground was much trampled, and tracks of lions were upon the sand; but the body of the buffalo had been dragged into the thorny jungle.
I do not believe that even the Secretary of that learned Society would volunteer to sleep with the lions; but as the leopards at the Khartoum Consulate constantly broke their chains, and attacked the dogs and a cow, and as the hyaena occasionally got loose, and the wild boars destroyed their mud wall, and nearly killed one of my Tokrooris during the night, by carving him like a scored leg of pork with their tusks, the fact of sleeping in the open air in the verandah, with the simple protection of a mosquito-netting, was full of pleasant excitement, and was a piquante entertainment that prevented a reaction of ennui after twelve months passed in constant watchfulness.
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