Thus then ended my first expedition,--a signal failure from inexperience, and with a loss of £510 worth of my own private property, which I never recovered. I had nothing to show but eleven artificial holes in my body. Had we gone straight from Aden, without any nervous preliminary fuss, and joined the Ugahden caravan at Berbera just as it was starting, I feel convinced we should have succeeded; for that is the only way, without great force, or giving yourself up to the protection of a powerful chief, that any one could travel in Somali Land. Firearms are useful in the day, but the Somali despise them at night, and consequently always take advantage of darkness to attack. Small-shot and smooth-bore guns, on this account, would be of far greater advantage as a means of defence than rifles with balls; and nothing but shot well poured in would have saved us from this last attack. We have been often condemned for not putting on more sentries to watch; but had the whole camp been in a state of ordinary preparation for war, with such cowardly hearts as our men all had, we should have been as signally defeated. We now set sail from Berbera, all highly disgusted with our defeat; and at Lieutenant Burton's request, we said we would go with him again if the Government would allow it. On arriving in Aden, I was a miserable-looking cripple, dreadfully emaciated from loss of blood, and with my arms and legs contracted into indescribable positions, to say nothing of various angry-looking wounds all over my body. Dansey now gave me a room in his house, and bestowed such tender care on me as I shall never forget. Colonel Coghlan also, full of feeling and sympathy for my misfortune, came over and sat at the feet of my bed, with tears in his eyes, and tried to condole with me. Fever, however, had excited my brain, so I laughed it all off as a joke, and succeeded in making him laugh too. The doctors next took compassion on me, formed into committee, and prescribed, as the only remedy likely to set me right again, a three years' leave to England, where, with the congenial effects of my native home, they hoped I should recover. Lieutenant Burton now sent in an estimate of all loss to the Government, and advised, as the best plan of taking an effectual revenge upon the Somali, in whose territories we were attacked (the Habr Owel), that a ship should be sent to blockade their coast, with a demand that they should produce for trial in Aden the living bodies of the two men who so cruelly killed our lamented friend, and so wantonly endeavoured to despatch me. Further, that a sum of money equivalent to all our aggregate losses should be paid in full ere the blockade would be raised. This was considered the wisest method by which, in future times, any recurrence of such disasters might probably be avoided. It is needless to observe, considering the importance of Berbera to the welfare of the Habr Owel, their subsistence and their existence as a nation