To add to the confusion and misery of the suppliant, the rain now began to pour down. I assured my visitor that it was quite usual for us to move, in case of storms, and that I had had the barges moved away from the banks lest the wind should drive them against them. In fact, I said we did this pretty well every night, but it was just all I could do to reassure the chief and his people. I could not help thinking that the scene was very like what one sees in the lunatic asylum at Charenton, and instead of a naval officer, I ought to have chosen a doctor accustomed to treat the insane, as ambassador to Ilo. He would certainly have looked upon the chief as a dipsomaniac whose case was rather an uncommon one. I was the less interested, however, as it would be my turn to keep watch from two to five o’clock, and I wanted to go to my cabin and have a sleep, especially as the rain was heavy and cold, penetrating to the very bones. In the end it was settled that I was to have the guide the very first thing the next morning. Would the promise be kept this time? No! not even now. It was evidently decreed that we were not to have a guide. In the morning a man appeared in a canoe who pretended that he was to go with us, and my hopes revived. But he had to wait for a companion who did not turn up, and presently he disappeared himself. At five o’clock, for the tenth and last time, I demanded the fulfilment of the promise made to me, our Kurteye going ashore with my message. “Listen to me,” he said; “I am sick of talking to these drunkards, I declare I can do absolutely nothing with them; and I want you to let me go.” I gave him leave, and we all set to work to drive the people of Girris off the boats, for they were doing a brisk trade in provisions, as if nothing unusual was going on and were in no hurry to go. “Push off!” I cried at last, this time in earnest, and my only regret was that I had yielded the evening before. The first thing in the morning we resumed our voyage without a guide. What could be the reason for the way we were treated? Did the natives want to make us remain as long as possible for the sake of our presents, and of the purchases we made? Or was it the two Mussulmans, especially Hadji Hamet, who seems to have been guilty of double dealing with the Decœur expedition, to whom we owed the change which had come over the sentiments of the natives towards us? Later, I learnt that one of my predecessors had had a quarrel with the natives of Ilo, about an ox which had been promised to him, and which, like my guide, never turned up. Perhaps he had not been as patient as he might have been under the circumstances, if he had remembered the interests of those to come after him.