Possibly, had the Arabs only us to deal with, things might not have got to this pass; but, very unluckily for this country, the Germans, who have long been jealous of our colonial enterprise and commercial success in Africa as elsewhere, took it into their heads, not long since, to extend their trade on the eastern seaboard. The ideas of Meinherr Von Sourkrout and his warlike Kaiser in respect of the colonisation of this part of the Dark Continent, like those of our French cousins on the West Coast, differ much from the more peaceful plan pursued by England for several generations past--a plan that has worked wonderfully well in the building up of our Empire, and the spread of our manufactures over every land and sea! Meinherr Sourkrout's method for extending trade, that is, according to the experience of us bluejackets of the British Navy who have served on the East African station, has been to shoot down the natives wherever the flag of his Fatherland has ever been stuck up; and, when the men of the negro tribes, objecting to such friendly advances, have bolted into the bush, Meinherr, imitating the example of his great countryman Marshal Haynau, took to flogging their wives and womenfolk in order to coax the black gentlemen back. The darkeys, somehow or other, didn't tackle to this treatment; and, the Germans having thus roused them up to the south of our protectorate, where, unfortunately for us, Meinherr Von Sourkrout and his domineering compatriots have a territory far too close to our own, the natives, being of the opinion that we were in sympathy with their oppressors, joined hands with the Somalis in their advance on our trading posts along the coast--they did not touch those belonging to the Germans, for the very good reason that these have none! I heard Mr Gresham explaining all this one day to Dabby when they were both sitting in the captain's gig, to which I had been shifted since my promotion to able seaman; for I was pulling stroke at the time, the boat taking them ashore to a grand dinner-party given by the British Consul to the Sultan or some other `big pot' at Zanzibar, off which port the _Mermaid_ was then lying. I wondered what led to this queer talk, as none of us on board had heard anything on the lower deck about any row being imminent; for, of course, sick of our stagnant life for the last few months, as all of us were, the inkling of any fight being in the air would have been as welcome to us as the `flowers of May.' Still I kept my ears open all the same; and when, the next morning, I met the captain's steward returning from the galley with a cup of early cocoa for `old Hankey Pankey,' and he told me that he thought we were going to be busy soon, the `old man' having directed him to take out his sword and pistols, and give them to his marine servant to be cleaned up, I began, as `Gyp' did that time on board the _Saint Vincent_, `to smell a rat.'