_March 14th_.--Twenty-one of the Balegga have offered their services, and have been sent down to the Lake to carry baggage. Total loads up to date, 1,037. I consider this carrier work to which I have subjected myself, officers, and men, as an essential part of my duty to my guests. They may not be deserving of this sacrifice on our part, but that makes no difference. What I regret is that such severe labour should be incurred uselessly. If any one of them were to express a concern that we were put to so much trouble, most of us would regard it as some compensation. But I have heard nothing which would lead me to believe that they regard this assistance as anything more than their due. [Illustration: CLIMBING THE PLATEAU-SLOPES.] I see the Egyptian officers congregating in special and select groups each day, seated on their mats, smoking cigarettes, and discussing our absolute slavishness. They have an idea that any one of them is better than ten Zanzibaris, but I have not seen any ten of them that could be so useful in Africa as one Zanzibari. [Sidenote: 1889. March 14. Kavalli’s.] _March 15th_.--Lieut. Stairs appeared with his caravan to-day. He reports that there are 100 people still at the Nyanza Camp, with an immense pile of baggage of the usual useless kind just arrived from Mswa station. [Illustration: SHUKRI AGHA, COMMANDANT OF MSWA STATION.] Shukri Agha, commandant of Mswa, has also arrived. At an interview with him, in the presence of the Pasha, I informed him in plain terms that if he expected to retire to the coast he would have to set about it immediately. I told him that I had been amazed at many things since my arrival the third time at the Lake, but the most wonderful thing of all was the utter disregard to instructions and orders manifested by everybody. In May last, ten months ago, they had all been informed of the cause of our coming. They had promised to be ready, and now he, Shukri Agha, had come to us to ask us for instructions, just as though he had never heard anything of the matter. If he, a commandant of a station, and commander of troops, appeared to be so slow to comprehend, how ever was it possible to convey it into the sense of the Soudanese soldier. All I had to say now was, that unless he, Shukri Agha, paid attention to what I said, he would be left behind to take the consequences. [Sidenote: 1889. March 15. Kavalli’s.] “Ah,” says Shukri, “I will go back to Mswa, and the very next day I shall embark the women and children on the steamers, and I shall march with our cattle through Melindwa overland, and we shall all be here in seven days.” “I shall expect you on the tenth day from this, with your families, soldiers, and cattle.” The Pasha said to me in the evening, “Shukri Agha has given me his solemn promise that he will obey the orders I have given him to depart from Mswa at once.” “Did you write them firmly, Pasha, in such a manner that there can be no doubt!” “Surely, I did so.”