Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and StanleyKingston, William Henry Giles
History
Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley
Kingston, William Henry Giles
Africa -- Description and travel; Africa -- Discovery and exploration; Explorers
The doctor was lying in his tent suffering from fever, when the alarm
was given that the enemy had arrived within a short distance of the
camp. He heard firing, when Overweg, mounting his horse, galloped off,
calling on his friend to follow him. The doctor, while his servant was
saddling his horse, flung his bournous over himself, and, grasping his
pistols and gun, mounted and started off towards the west, ordering
Mahomet to cling fast to his horse's tail. Not a moment was to be lost,
as the enemy had begun to attack the east side of the camp. Soon
afterwards, however, he saw the Arab horsemen rallying to attack the
enemy, who had dispersed in order to collect the spoil, and, overtaking
Mr Overweg, informed him that the danger was over.
On returning to the camp they found that their luggage and even their
tent had gone. The Arabs, however, pursuing the enemy, got back most of
their things.
The natives again attacked the camp in the evening, but were beaten off.
Hearing, however, that a large body of Wadey horsemen were to join
their enemies, the Arabs retreated, and the doctor and his friends,
finding a caravan on its way to Kukawa, returned with it on the 25th of
November.
After a rest of ten days the persevering travellers again set forth with
the sheikh and his vizier on an expedition against Mandara, the
principal object of which was to replenish their coffers and
slave-rooms, a secondary one to punish the prince of that small country,
who, protected by its mountains, had behaved in a very refractory
manner. The vizier treated the travellers with great courtesy, and
desired them to ride by his side. The army, which was of considerable
size, advanced in regular order. At first they amused themselves with
hunting. One day a giraffe was caught. The vizier was attended by
eight female slaves and horsemen, and the same number of led horses.
The unfortunate natives had to provide grain for the army wherever it
marched. They spent a day at a village where the troops had to lay in a
supply of corn, as they were about to pass the border region, between
the cities of the Mahommedans and those of the Pagan tribes, which, as
is generally the case in this part of the world, have been reduced to
desolation. The vizier made Mr Overweg a present of a small lion. On
a previous occasion he had given him a ferocious little tiger cat, which
though young was extremely fierce, and quite mastered the young lion.
They, however, soon died, in consequence of the continual swinging
motion they had to endure on the backs of the camels in the heat of the
day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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