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SUE

BY

WILLIAM ASHLEY ANDERSON

'¦'•$,••

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

South of
Suez

A Shuin or Petty Chieftain of the Shoan Stock, With
Headdress of Tufts of Lions' Tails, Garments of Velvet
and Silk, Shield Studded With Gold and a High-
Powered Rifle.

South

of

s,

uez

SLSi.

by
William Ashley Anderson

Illustrated

Tsjeto Tor\
Robert M. McBride & Co.
1920

Copyright, 1920, by
Robert M. McBride & Co.

Published August, 1920

To those absent and distant friends,
with whom I may never walk again, but
in whose memory I live and who will
always live in mine ... to them who
have unconsciously proven to me that
there is something more in life than all
its grim reality, who have taught me that
in the stinking slime of the village pool is
where the lotus blooms, and with whom I
have learned that the best of life is in
dreams and the memory of dreams,
though dreams never mastered them and
illusions never lured them from the safe
humorous cynicism that knows the most
magnificent roar of the lion is, after all,
a glorious and satisfying belch!
May they always find water by the
baobab, and gin for the mahdafu. . . .
Jambol

CONTENTS PAGE
A Coin Is Spun  1
Soldiebs, Sand, and Sentiment .... 5
Aden or Ababy  31
Cross and Scimitab in Abyssinia :
I. The Prince Dons a Turban ... 65
II. Revenge of Abou "Roll-Them-Up" . 87
III. Triumph of Zeoditou, Daughter of
Menelik  Ill
Es-Sawahil  141
Zanzibar — The Spicy Isle  151
The Wilderness Patbol  189
Kwa Hebi  235

ILLUSTRATIONS
A shum or petty chieftain of the Shoan stock,
with headdress of tufts of lions' tails, gar
ments of velvet and silk, shield studded with
gold, and a high-powered rifle . . Frontispiece FACING PAGE
By the edge of the Canal, excavating the con
tinually seeping sands of the desert ... 16
Looking into the Crater, old Aden, from above
the Tanks built during a civilisation of which
nothing is known  17
A bit of the Aden bazaar, with the choki, or jail,
on the left  32
The drying water-hole, a remarkable impression
of thorn bush and animal life — oryx and im-
palla  33
(A) The first picture of the apostate Prince,
Lidj Yassou, taken in the turban of a Mussul
man  65
(B) A Somali of the Benadir Coast. The won
derful teeth of the Somalis are preserved with
the mushmak, a chewed twig  65
Lidj Yassou, as the reigning Prince of Abyssinia,
in his most gorgeous raiment  66
Negro border tribesmen from the Equatorial
Provinces of Southern Abyssinia .... 76
(A) The Beau Brummel of a small native village
near Nairobi  77
ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

( B ) Somali women of the Ogaden and Somaliland
are as fine of feature  77
One of the last pictures of Menelik II, King of
Kings of Ethiopia, seated in state with mem
bers of his Council  87
Camp visitors along the old trade route between
Nairobi and the Abyssinian frontier ... 88
The victorious Shoan army marching about fifty
thousand strong before the Empress Zeoditou
after destroying Ras Mikael's invading army
a few days previously beyond the hills . . Ill
The Franco-Ethiopian Railway, the principal
outlet of Abyssinia, and the only practical
means of conquering the desert girt empire . 112
Mombasa, the entrepot for British East Africa,
presents a mixture of civilisation and sav
agery typifying the East Coast .... 144
Itinerant witch doctors in the Lake district . . 145
Zanzibar, chief port of the East African Coast,
formerly the centre of the slave trade, show
ing on the right the Sultan's palace . . . 162
A corner of the Goanese market in Nairobi, Brit
ish East Africa, between five and six thou
sand feet above sea and virtually on the
equator  163
The line of a "peace" safari winding in single file,
porters bearing fifty-pound loads en route for
the Valley of Lions  196
An n'goma in the form of a tribal dance of the
Kikuyu, the dancers circling in couples . . 197

ILLUSTRATIONS xi

FACING PAGE

A family gathering in a Masai manyeta behind a
thick hedge of impenetrable thorn bush . . 206
A Massai brave with one of his wives, along the
edge of the Massai Steppe  207
Massai women elaborately gowned to pay a morn
ing call  209
An old Massai woman — about thirty — eldest wife
of the headman of a manyeta  210
A scouting party of Meru Massai .... 216
Rhino killed at sixty-one feet when charging.
The antics of this blundering beast send the
porters flying into the thorn trees for shelter 217
Askaris with Shirati wives, in the Muanza dis
trict. The white crescent over the askari's
forehead is the tooth* of a hippo .... 222
Shirati wives of Kikuyu askaris, in the Muanza
district, German East Africa  223
Flying column entraining at Voi in steel carriages
of the Uganda Railway  223
Kikuyu men with their wives gathered for a feast
and dance. Anklets and leggings of brass
wire, zebra and monkey skins  230
A Kikuyu showing his tribal marks .... 231
Characteristic "Kikuyus" in front of their banda
of mud-and-thatch where pestilential insects
hide  231
Unmarried girls of the Ruanda district gathered
to catch a glimpse of the new political officer
on his first visit to conquered territory . . 234
War Dance of the Meru Massai ..... 235

A Coin Is Spun
MOROSE and rebellious, victims more of a
mood of depression than of any tangible
menace, we stepped out of the gloom of a
grey fog into the dry, smoke-filled atmosphere
of a low-ceilinged room where tables were lit
tered about, and surly, red-faced men argued
in rising and falling cadence over matters of
great moment to the world but of httle moment
to them.
A querulous voice insisted:
"All I says is, keep their hands offer us!
Europe's none of our business; and we don't
want none of theirs!" . . .
Another more sensible voice bawled with in
dignant and reiterated determination:
"A lil' piece-a cheese, Sharley! ... A lil'
piece-a cheese, Sharley! ... I wanta piece-a
cheese, Sharley! . . . And some mustard!" . . .
The cash register behind the bar was musically
tolling its chimes ; a rattle of knives and forks
and roughly handled dishes gave a clue to the
[1]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
door of the adjoining restaurant; and from a
breezily decorated room in back came the disturb
ing syncopations of a small stringed band. We
went thither; found a table in the corner; and
ordered seidels of Pilsener and a small tureen
of Long Island Golden Buck.
When we had eaten, and the long, cool beer
had somewhat soothed us, we turned in our
chairs and watched the few dancers with cynical
attention. The music was good, the dancing was
pleasant to watch, and the place was respectable.
But its name was Germania Hall; and we had
both just failed to have our services accepted in
Belgium. . . .
New York was smothering us.
The throngs of restless, useless men in the
streets exasperated us; the futile gatherings by
the bulletin boards amused and then enraged us ;
the unimportance of our own work in a world
that was more and more insisting on primitive
action worked upon our spirits with a depressing
effect, and we felt a growing and irresistible de
termination to get out and do something — do we
cared not what; go we cared not whither. Ac
customed to wide places, we wanted again to
stretch our arms and test our strength with prob-
[2]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
lems that were not inextricably intertwined with
commuters' trains and daily schedules.
I drew a coin from my pocket and looked at
my companion. He caught my meaning in
stantly. His face brightened and he grinned.
"All right," he said. "Heads, it's South
America." "Tails, it's Africa," I added, and spun the
coin. . . .
Two weeks later we sailed for Africa.
In these sketches of some of the incidents that
have filled the years since then there are gaps,
there are wilful omissions (especially of war
events; for of that we weary), there is no real
continuity in my grouping, because fate has
scattered my cards like a marked deck flung in
the face of a gambler. Only you who know
can read in them other tales by observing closely
the little points that mark the cards. And now
that it is over, there surges up the same unrest,
because the world, we know who know the far
places, is not at peace, and uncertainty still stirs
vaguely within.
The cogitations of the men at Versailles are
forced to embrace Mkwa, the Massai warrior,
dead chieftain of the same folk from whom
[3]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
my bee-hunting kilongozi quailed when we de
bouched from the dark forest. Suddenly in the
same capital there appear Abyssinian rases, men
whom I saw in mediaeval warfare to preserve
their ancient empire, now offering it as a vassal
state of France. At my elbow there is a httle
machine through which blithely sounds the voice
of my chum, whom I had more than once thought
of burying under the palms of Dar-es- Salaam.
The chapters have ended pleasantly; but there
are letters in my mail from Madagascar, China,
and Singapore. And there are rising doubts in
my mind.
"I am of this mind with Homer," said Lyly,
"that as the snaile that crept out of her shel was
turned eftsoones into a toad, and thereby was
forced to make a stoole to sit on ; so the traveller
that stragleth from his owne country is in a short
time transformed into so monstrous a shape, that
he is faine to alter his mansion with his manners,
and to live where he can, not where he would."
In that, old friends of mine, there is a melan
choly truth. But though we can never gather
by one single hearth, the wind of reminiscence
will blow us to many reunions. And memory
may outlive matter! [4]

Soldiers, Sand, and Sentiment
AS we came up from tiffin, there, lying flat
as an adder in the sun, mottled with
bleached colour, was Port Said, on its spit of
Egyptian sand. A fishing-fleet of feluccas
clung to the edge of the shallow beach like
crumbs upon a withered hp, and the mouth of
the canal was choked with shipping.
There was hardly any of the old-time chatter
of enthusiasm. Most of us had seen it all be
fore. An officer, who had cultivated the habit
of rubbing his left arm briskly by way of eco
nomical massage, smiled wryly, and said:
"Well, vacation's over. Here w;e are back at
the old shop with lots of unfinished business."
That was the general attitude.
The decks were crowded with convalescent
officers, young and old, all men who had been
in heavy action — at Ypres, at Loos, at Hulluch,
at Suvla Bay, in the North Sea, and in the
iEgean. As for the others, they also served —
pink-faced boys with new, faultless tropical
[5]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
gear, on their way out as substitutes to Basra
in the Gulf, or to bury themselves in remote posts
of the Soudan; a. few frightened Egyptian
officials, happy enough at getting home, yet
doubtful of what awaited them; some blase
Frenchmen; a governor or two of unmapped dis
tricts in the Far East; well-curried traders, too
old for the trenches, but more than fit to keep
England's chests filled with gold; some unob
trusive children; and a number of sweet-faced
English wives, shining examples, with smiling
faces and gentle hands, sharing their large part
of the Empire's burden. So there they all were
together, a boat-load of them, bruised sinews of
a world empire ; and there before them was that
strange anomaly, Port Said, a vampire sucking
up the blood of men, and a horn of plenty pour
ing forth the wealth of the Orient.
We rounded the breakwater, and the great
P. & O. liner, with a bellow of palpable rehef
at having passed the hazards of the Mediter
ranean, slid self-consciously past the irregular
row of cynical, lumpy, bulbous French cruisers
— which, with those ubiquitous French ensigns,
long lines of drying clothes, flying between the
masts, and anchor-eyes oozing rust, plainly in-
[6]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
dicated that they, also, had been flirting with
death on the high seas — and came to anchor
close to the customs jetty along the Bund.
The tender slipped alongside to put the agent
aboard; the small harbour craft poked in and
out, while their dusky scullers waved their red
fezzes and screamed for passengers; the winches
roared and struggled with the freight; the great
coal-hulks, alive with grimy black men chewing
hunks of dry bread and spitting out verbal filth,
fastened themselves to the towering vessel like
unclean monsters — and the agony was on.
"Phew!" said the Australian major, wiping
the soot from his eyes, "this is rotten. I'm not
going to stick it much longer." Which struck
me as rather remarkable, coming from a man
who had survived five months in the trenches of
Anzac before being mauled about by a Turkish
shell — especially as he had only one useful leg
to hobble away on.
On my other hand was a Scotch skipper, bound
for Singapore as a passenger — a very remark
able man even in normal times; one who had
ploughed his dogged way through the channels
of every sea, gathering experiences as a ship
gathers barnacles. He had crashed through
[7]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Formosan junks, weathered typhoons and bliz
zards, raced with hostile submarines, and, I have
reason to believe, was even on hand to aid in sal
vaging the Audacious — if salvaged she was.
Short, powerful, imperturbable as to face, nimble
as to wit, he had a great heart and fearless lips.
Cocking a waggish eye at me, he removed the
pipe from his mouth and nodded toward shore.
I deprecated the suggestion.
"Only to send a cable," said I, "and to buy
a new topi."
"Oh, ay," said the skipper. "They never go
for more."
"What," said the major, "and aren't you going
ashore?" "Now look ye here," demanded the skipper,
scornfully, "do I look like such a fool? What's
there to see, ay? A bloomin' lot o' niggars and
greasy Egyptians. Ye go up to the hotel and
have a cup o' black coffee, and grin wi' delight,
and pay one-and-sixpence for it. And maybe
ye see some sodgers loafin' about the streets,
and maybe ye don't. Or else ye go up to Simon
Arts and buy some curios for the wee uns at
home. If ye stop aboard they'll all come back,
fast enough, sick of it, wi' their bellies full. . . ."
[8J

SOUTH OF SUEZ
"And how about 'Madame Binat and a Zan
zibar dance of the finest'?" I suggested.
He wheeled about and studied me for a mo
ment under half -closed eyelids.
"Oh, ay," he said, grinning broadly. "So
that's it. But ye'U find no more o' that. These
are war-times. It's not the old place, ye know."
This was true. The place was no longer as
it had been in the old days of home-going
Colonials and tourists who measured each new
thrill with their purse-strings. Where were the
boats with the Levantine girls — doe-eyed girls
with only the faintest hard fines about their lips,
strumming mandolins and guitars, and trying
desperately, with their thin, spiritless voices, to
lend a note of gaiety to "Funicula," despite the
clattering roar of winches and the howling of
the grimy coal-wallahs? Where were the grin
ning Arab and Somali boys, mocking the singers
with burlesque chatter as they gambolled in the
muddied water, diving for coins as cormorants
dive for fish? And where was the sleek, sala
cious presence at the elbow, unobtrusive though
ubiquitous, breathing in oily accents : "Salamat.
Sir, you want to see naughty peektures? Look,
sir — French peektures. One bob"? Gone!
[91

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Faded away into the unhealthy, mythical past
of peace and prosperity.
Nevertheless, feeling supremely self-con
scious, I slipped away from the skipper's ac
cusing glance and sought the Girl from Kep-
pel Harbor to see if there were any commissions
I could perform ashore. Then I joined the
mixed crowd that eddied about the gangway and
flowed in an unbroken procession of skiffs
toward the customs jetty, where several Egyp
tian officials were examining passports and in
specting the landing passengers. As I went
over the side, the skipper shook his pipe at me
and called:
"No funny business, now. Ye mind the notice
in the smoking-room?"
But I went blithely ashore, sniffing reminis-
cently the commingled stinks that are the per
fume of the Orient. And here I was plucked
out of the merry line by a little slip of an Egyp
tian official, clad in the raiment of a New York
Benjamin, plus a red fez. As his eye fell upon
my passport, he looked plainly startled.
"You are Americain?"
"Certainly. You see my passport."
"Sorree. You cannot land,"
[10]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
He handed back the passport, readjusted his
fez nervously, and turned to the next applicant
with such an air of finality that for a moment
I stood there uncertainly. Then I took him by
the elbow. I told him, gently, that it would be
necessary for me to see some one of higher
authority. In the course of the next three minutes I
passed through the hands of two more startled
officials and two indignant harbour policemen,
whom I wilfully mistook for local guides; but
in the end I only succeeded in landing myself
in front of a counter in the passport bureau, be
side the barrier. Several sweating, vociferous,
bespectacled Egyptians, behind the counter, were
waving papers and shouting incoherently at a
dazed, shuffling mob, shaken, like vermin, from
the very tail of Asia. My case was settled
rapidly ^
"Impossible," said the chief.
"Damn it! . . ."I exploded.
"No matter," said he, "it's impossible."
At this moment a trim little Frenchwoman,
bareheaded and dressed in a neat black skirt,
slipped up to me, scribbled on a piece of paper,
and thrust it into my hand.
[11]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
"Passez" said she.
I was astonished. "Thank you," I said
politely. "Passez," she repeated coldly, and looked at
me with hard eyes. I examined the paper. It
was a permit to return to the vessel. They
would not let me land at all, and apparently
they would not let me depart without special
permission. I elbowed my way back furiously
to the counter; but a British army officer spied
me and, working his way quickly through the
crowd before I could say anything, laid a
friendly hand on my arm.
"I'm afraid it's no use," he said. "You see,
the whole blessed place is a war zone now.
You're practically in the trenches; and they're
awf'ly particular. Good Lord! I'm having
trouble myself, and if they won't let an army
man through, it doesn't seem likely they'll let
a stranger pass, does it?"
He was hardly more than a boy; but he was
a captain, and I saw he belonged to a regiment
that had fought hard in Gallipoh. It suddenly
occurred to me that I was making an ass of my
self, and a general nuisance to people engaged
on a mighty serious business — a nation strug-
[12]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
gling to keep its head hterally above water. I
turned away from the counter.
"I suppose you're right," I admitted.
"It's hard lines," he said.
"Not at all. I should have understood. I've
no right to bother your people here just for the
sake of a cup of black coffee."
We both laughed. He was a nice chap, with
a friendly smile and candid eyes, and I should
have liked to make his better acquaintance. It
must have dawned on both of us at the same
time how bitter, in a way, are these war-time
meetings; for suddenly we shook hands. He
was on his way to his death, for all I knew; and
for all he knew, I was drifting merrily and care
lessly about the world.
"Good luck," I said.
"Thank you."
And he disappeared in the crowd, and I went
slowly back to the jetty. However, I wandered
aside from the landing-stage, and was about to
accept the services of a ravenous crowd of un
licensed boatmen who came over the edge of
the wharf and swarmed at me like Gulf pirates
over the edge of a dhow, when the two harbour
pohcemen converged upon me, gesticulating
[13]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
violently and shouting all manner of Egyptian
slang. It was plain I had wandered away from
the official landing-stage and was being ordered
back into line. It is not exactly pleasant for an
old resident of the East to be ordered about by
a native policeman; and then it suddenly oc
curred to me that here was an opportunity with
a bit of strategy to get past the barrier, after
all, for the choki was in the heart of the town.
So I remained where I was, and used language
that would have convulsed a camel-driver; but
it was useless provocation.
They regarded me, for a moment, with dark
ening faces, uncertain what to do. Then they
conferred under their breath, shrugged their
shoulders simultaneously, and walked deliber
ately away. There remained nothing for me to
do but to clamber into a bumboat. In a few
minutes I was aboard once more. As I crossed
the ship's deck, there was the skipper, feet wide
apart, head tilted back, eyeing me severely under
lowered lids.
"Ye blitherin' fool," said he, "did I not tell
ye to stop yer funny business?"
I laughed at him.
So he took me by the arm and guided me to
[14]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
the smoking-room, where a notice was posted
pertaining to passports. And I read thereon
that any one endeavouring to pass the barrier
by any irregularity or subterfuge whatsoever
would be subjected to the complete operations
of martial law.
I made my way soberly to the other end of
the boat, to a shady spot under the bridge, where
I found the Girl from Keppel Harbor reading
a book of Bartimeus's yarns, and sought to divert
myself with her naive wit. She was in a blithe
mood, and we chatted merrily ; but, before I was
quite aware of it, she was giving me a horrifying
personal account of the Singapore mutiny.
And then I realised definitely that war was a
complete obsession.
Ambition was dead; Adventure was dead; Ro
mance was dead. An inkling of this had been
borne in on me in London — black, asthmatic
London, where only hectic men and crippled
men were left in peace, if peace there be in
gloomy reflections and gloomier prospects. All
delicate and fine emotions had been absorbed in
the dull pain. Fathers no longer thought
proudly of their sons' futures ; subalterns did not
dream of becoming great generals; sweethearts
[15]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
had no plans for the happy return of their loved
ones; no one considered his own future or his
own desires. It had suddenly been borne in
upon them that life is entirely too transitory and
uncertain. There was no spontaneous, heartfelt
merriment; there was no true wit. Whether
consciously or unconsciously, all light amuse
ments were carried on abstractedly, like the
gaiety of the comedian who knows there is a
tragedy behind the painted scenery.
It was not depression; it was simply that the
individual consciousness was sunk in the national.
No matter how these people may scorn the
philosophy, they had adopted the philosophy of
the Germans. A dead man, a shattered man, a
pitiful woman — it was nothing, so long as the
nation stood firm. "C'est la guerre," said the
armless Frenchman at Marseilles, shrugging his
shoulders. "Oh, yes, it'll be all right again,"
said the Australian major, swaying on his
crutches. "I'll be back in the trenches in two
months." Most of them were out here to fight
the Turks, or the Bulgars, or the Greeks; but
principally the Sick Man of Europe.
That night, as I gazed into the star-sprinkled
darkness of the desert across the salt-works in
[16]

By the Edge of the Canal, Excavating the Continually S eeping Sands of the Desert.

Looking Into the Crater, Old Aden, From Above the Tanks Built During a Civilization of Which Nothing
° Known.

SOUTH OF SUEZ
the direction of Jaffa, I remembered it was here
that "the sick man took up his bed and walked."
And I also remembered that where the salt-
heaps gleamed white in the gloom, hke the tents
of a vast, ghostly army, a young Macedonian
named Alexander had once marched. Then I
thought of that empire upon whose dominions
the sun never sets; and of the Frenchman, De
Lesseps; and the Canal, the weakest link in the
Empire; and I dreamed that an answer was
ready to the ancient query: What happens
when an irresistible force meets an immovable
body? The ship did not move till daylight. There
was much to be done. The bunkers were
crammed with coal; cargo was discharged; the
naval gun was lifted from the stern; fresh
vegetables were taken aboard for barren Aden,
cut off from the mainland by the Turks; and the
pilot-house was banked with sandbags.
As the white sun rose out of Asia, I stepped
out of my cabin in kimono and sandals and
looked across the first sweep of Arabian desert.
We had already left Port Said behind us and
were well on our way through the big trench.
At first there was nothing at all remarkable
[17]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
in the scene ; I might have been on the platform
of an observation-car that had just cleared the
Lueian Cut-off and was sweeping through wes
tern Utah. It was flatter, though, with undula
tions that merged into one another so cunningly
that armies could march across the plain without
being observed; and a horseman, riding straight
away from the Canal, would be lost behind the
hummocks as you watched him. So it is not re
markable that, as I gazed across the dead salt
desert, where nothing apparently could five, I
only became aware by degrees that vague objects
moved and vanished in the distance; but gradu
ally the shapes took form, and I found that the
sands were full of httle groups of horsemen,
camelmen, infantrymen, in patrols and outposts,
hke the httle lead soldiers we played with as
children. And along the very edge of the Canal
were motionless sentinels, standing or squatting
under mat shelters to protect them from the blaze
of the tropical sun. The desert had a hundred
thousand eyes and a million stings.
The early risers began to come on deck, to go
through their Swedish drill, to stretch their
bruised muscles, to gaze again upon familiar
scenes. [18]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
"We'll be at Kantarah soon," said a young,
grey-eyed officer of the Indian Marine.
I looked forward. The Canal wound grace
fully away to the southward, fringed on the
Egyptian side by a refreshing growth of green
palms and drab acacias, broken at long intervals
by tiny bungalows, where employes of the Canal
Company kept eternal watch over the company's
interests, much as the armed sentries across the
way stood guard for the Empire. On the
Arabian side was nothing but the billowing sand,
crowding itself to the very water's edge and
seeping into the channel itself, despite the re
vetments of stone brought in ballast from far
countries to hold the tiny particles in check, de
spite the great dredges that prowl up and down,
sucking at the invading streams like monstrous
anteaters facing a migratory tide of insects.
"Kantarah?" "Yes. There it is now." His face became
animated. Leaning far forward, he fixed his
gaze on the approaching spot; and there, sure
enough, was Kantarah, the point nearest Port
Said where the Turks had attempted to cross.
"How far did they get?" I asked.
"Not far." He grinned. "I was in charge
[19]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
of a couple of armed tugs. We kept running
up and down from here to Ishmaiheh, banging
away in the dark."
"But they reached the Canal?"
"Oh, yes. They launched some pontoons —
two. There's one now. The other's down at
Ishmaiheh." There, just swinging into the Kantarah bank
at the end of a cable, for all the world hke a
Chinese ferry on the Grand Canal, loaded with
Indian troops, horses, and fodder, was a barge-
like iron pontoon. I recognised its German
origin ; for I had seen such before. But this was
the first vessel I had ever known to cross a desert
that tries the stamina of Bedouins and the en
durance of dromedaries. It was not the last.
There was another at Ishmaiheh. And at Port
Tewfik there was a long row of them, punctured
by shrapnel and bullets, filled with sand, and used
as a causeway.
It was in my heart to feel sympathy for the
wasted efforts of .these surprising Turks. It
will be a long while before we understand the
organisation of the army that crossed the desert,
dragging pontoons and heavy guns, effecting
simultaneous attacks at three main points on a
[20]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
front extending a hundred miles along a barren
shore, with a salt desert as a base; and persisting
in the attacks to the point of launching several
pontoons — six of which, probably, could have
supported a bridge and afforded sufficient
accommodation for a strong advance-guard.
There was one thing, however, that aroused
equal admiration; it was the appalling neatness
with which the attack was smashed. It was as
though three serpents, having crawled across the
desert, reared their heads simultaneously, only
to have them completely crushed by several very
large and very determined hobnailed boots.
It was all explained to me in detail, but I
cannot explain it to you.
Nevertheless, I should like to have picked
Kantarah camp up bodily and deposited it some
where near Plattsburg. It was a delight; per
fect, so far as I could see, in every detail, from
the adobe buildings that held headquarters to
the camel patrols, drifting in a mist of sand
along the eastern rim of the desert. Trenches,
sentinels, outposts ; battalions of infantry wheel
ing about on the floor of the desert; signalmen
wig-wagging in squads like white and scarlet
poppies tossed about by the winds; camel corps
[21]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
and cavalry squadrons; field-guns and heavier
artillery behind the low hills on the Egyptian
side of the moat-like Canal. All were there, all
in their correct proportions, and each peculiarly
fit for this particular brand of warfare.
From Kantarah to the powerfully fortified
camp at Ishmaiheh the vessel passed hterally be
tween two lines of trenches. It was a pretty
object-lesson to a man interested in defence
against invasion, a veritable cinema film, every
foot of which added an instructive picture. But
vastly more interesting was the dehght of the
Indian army officers on board at the sight of
familiar regiments — naked Brahmins squatting
at the water's edge, washing their heads and
rinsing their mouths, while in their midst stood
some berry-brown Enghsh officer, sleeves rolled
up, shirt collar opened clear down to his chest,
"shorts" permitting a generous expanse of
weathered knee and calf, topi tilted back with
all the cockiness of an opera-hat, and a light
stick under his arm; Bikanirs swaying past on
the towering camels of India, haughtily indiffer
ent to the passing liner, or casting incurious
glances at the railings thronged with eager faces ;
lancers from Bengal trotting by in patrols, on
[22]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
graceful horses, daintily lifting their hoofs high
in the heavy sand; an outpost of bewhiskered
Punjaubis, leaning on their rifles and grinning
with sheer delight.
There was uproar in some of the native camps
— camps of clustering mat huts with fires of
twigs in the open places, sending aloft wisps
of smoke like long, thin feathers; camps that
might have been villages on the Indus or Irra-
wady, except for the almost startling absence of
women, babies, bullocks, and gaunt pariahs ; and
having behind them, instead of green jungle,
broad fields of barbed wire, ripe for the cutting
if a reaper could be found. There was uproar,
the natives streaming from their huts, lining up
along the bank at sight of the great mail-boat
sweeping past them on the road to Inde, and
shouting and cheering, while the sahibs and
memsahibs on board, forgetting all distinctions
in the confraternity of empire, shouted and
cheered back.
"Jove!" said a flustered colonel, mopping his
flushed face, as a new group came sliding along
side, "I didn't know they were here." Then,
unable to contain himself, he leaned far over the
railing, waving his topi, and bellowing:
[23]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
"What regiment? What regiment? Court
ney Sahib, hai? Courtney Sahib! Oh, Court
ney! Courtney!"
There was a break in the black hne of shout
ing natives, and a silent, thin, self-contained
officer was disclosed, wearing his bleached and
abbreviated khaki with the careless ease of an
old-timer. Instead of a topi he wore a turban,
which was a bit of unconscious "swank," as the
"subs" say. Twenty of his men looked at him
and shouted, pointing upward at the ship sweep
ing past. The officer scanned the passengers
with quizzical pleasure; but when, at length, his
gaze lighted on the hoarse, furiously gesticulat
ing colonel, the sight electrified him. He threw
up both arms in greeting, and ran up to his knees
into the water.
"Oh, it's you!" he shouted, joyfully. "Where
to?" "Peshawur. Is Meadows with you?"
"Yes. Back there in the sand. Where's old
Strumleigh?" shrieked the officer, thinking he
was not heard. "Strumleigh! Where's 'Billy
Williams' Strumleigh?"
A gale of laughter swept the side of the ship,
for 'Billy Williams' is a drink. By the time the
[24]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
laughter had subsided, the boat had passed out
of calhng distance. The colonel looked dazedly
at me, with a rather hopeless expression on his
face. "But 'Billy Williams' is dead," he protested,
mildly. "He was killed in Serbia, you know."
I didn't know, but I thought I understood.
I had a brief vision of three young subalterns
twenty years ago, on shikar together in the
Kashmiri hills. So I walked around to the other
side, leaving the colonel murmuring inanely to
himself, "By Jove! By Jove!"
I found the Girl from Keppel Harbor reclin
ing in a long chair, for the moment oblivious
to the panorama that was being reeled off under
our very noses while she hstened, with amiable
abstraction, to the smiling remarks of an Irish
subaltern, a broth of a lad, seated beside her on
a camp-stool. You would not have thought, to
look at the graceful, well-set length of him, and
his laughing eyes and close-trimmed moustache,
that his body had felt the bite of several bullets,
his lungs had been torn with pneumonia, and
his frost-bitten legs saved from the surgeon's
scalpel and saw only at the risk of a mortifying
body. To see his teeth flash and hear his low
[25]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
laugh you never would have thought it. With
vague reluctance I turned away, my attention
diverted by new sights.
There were regiments of white troops linked
along the Canal, many and many of them — Brit
ish, Australians and New Zealanders. The Aus
tralians were Americans in looks and tempera
ment. They sat on the bank on the Egyptian
side, under the shade of a few sere palm-trees,
shouting and bantering with the passengers, or
plunging into the water in all their khaki kit for
tins of cigarettes flung from the decks. I nq-
ticed one solitary figure under a shady bank,
fishing with a long bamboo pole. Came a loud,
clear drawl from a fellow-countryman on board:
"Pret-ty soft! Pret-ty soft!"
The bamboo pole was jerked up viciously.
The fisherman glared at the boat.
"Pretty soft!" he roared. "Pretty soft, hey?
Why don't you come down here? This is a hell
of a life, this is. No fish; and I haven't seen
a damned Turk in a month." And he placed
the long pole at slope arms, climbed morosely
up the bank, and disappeared behind a hillock.
And so the ship passed on, with the passen
gers shouting, cheering, calling messages, hardly
[26]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
ever at a loss to make themselves understood —
recognising old regiments, old friends, recalling
memories of the hills, the plains, the clubs of
Bombay, and the great colonies south of the line.
I came across an apprentice who was doing
duty as fourth officer, in view of the shortage of
men, standing unsupported on the five-inch rail
ing, swaying his body this way and that, waving
his arms together, right to left, or one at a time,
in all the complications of semaphore signalling.
On shore, a good eighth of a mile away, another
figure was answering him. Thus they talked in
silence, until the angle of the boat forbade any
further communication. Then he leaped down
from the railing with the expression of one who
has completed an errand.
"Sending a message from my mother," he ex
plained, grinning. "Have a brother back there
with the gunners."
All day long this sort of thing continued, till
it became commonplace, and the majority of the
passengers wearily drowsed in their steamer-
chairs — past Kantarah, past Ishmaiheh, into the
Bitter Lakes, where several North Sea trawlers
went placidly about their business in the unfa
miliar waters, hunting for mines; and a French
[27]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
cruiser sat firmly on the mud — a steel citadel,
frowning across the shimmering desert. . . .
When we left the lakes, the sun was declining
rapidly. Now, if there's one thing more impres
sive than a desert sunrise, it's a desert sunset, as
any guide will tell you at Shepheard's. So, al
most unconsciously, in ones and twos, the pas
sengers drifted over to the starboard side. Be
yond the Bitter Lakes the Canal had widened
out, and the ship slipped through the still waters
with ever-increasing speed, and the outposts on
shore thinned as the country became more des
olate. An outcropping of the Libyan hills rose on
the western horizon, and the great, red Egyptian
sun plunged behind it, as a light passes behind a
Japanese screen, throwing out bars and wisps
of shifting colour. Sunset is probably the only
moment of daylight when our thoughts are fo-
cussed on supermundane things. Gazing in si
lent eye-worship at the heart of our constellation,
we are strangely lifted out of ourselves, espe
cially on the edge of a desert where there are
no petty distractions to draw aside our irrespon
sible, childish attention; we are suddenly over
come with a suffocating sense of physical minute-
[28]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
ness, and at the same time filled with a feeling
of spiritual expansion. As a result we stand
dumb, filled with intangible memories, vague
longings, and a melancholy unrest. The shad
ows, the solid banks of gold and purple and saf
fron, a silver-edged feather of a cloud high in
the broad sky, a brief silhouette of camels on the
sky-line, their riders gazing upward — all these
things interpret the solemn silence. And as we
gazed, forgotten was war and all its misery; the
tumult suddenly was still. And then it was
dark. Still I did not move.
An arm was gently linked in mine. I glanced
aside to see the skipper with his solemn face and
waggish eyes.
"Ay," he nodded, knowingly. "But yonder's
the hghts of Sooez."
Twinkling on the horizon off our starboard
bow were the lights of Suez, marking the end of
the Canal.
"We'll soon be out in the open. Are ye goin'
to be long in the East?" he added suddenly.
I nodded.
"Then," he said, taking the pipe from his
mouth and shaking it under my chin, "ye'd bet
ter take yer eyes off the sky and come down and
[29]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
fill yer belly wi' substantial food. Star-gazing
will never get ye anything in this world."
Which I sorrowfully admitted to be a fact.
So I joined him, and we went below. . . . But
I caught a glimpse of the young Irish officer and
the Girl from Keppel Harbor standing in the
shadows far forward, watching the moon rise out
of the desert ; and I began to have my doubts.

[30]

Aden of Araby
LEANING over the rail of a Nord Deutscher
Lloyd steamer, safe in harbour after having
been battered across the Indian Ocean by the
young and lusty monsoon, I listened to the Ger
man doctor who stood beside me pointing out the
flat, narrow isthmus, across which caravans came
bearing the fruits and spices of Araby. Aden
bulked ruggedly at the end of the isthmus hke
a rock in the loop of a sling poised for some
unseen foe.
"It's ugly," said the young doctor, reflectively,
"and it's hot and dirty, but there are great possi
bilities . . ."
After a couple of years, when I again entered
the shimmering harbour and looked across the
scorching white reaches of the Arabian shore, the
old Deutscher was lying on a coral bed lapped
by the waves of the China Sea. I do not know
where the doctor breathed; but this I know —
there was nothing on the wide seas that sailed
from Bremen, and the Yemen gave forth noth-
[31]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
ing but bullets from Austrian Mausers and dust
djinns that came snorting and shrieking from the
Hadremaut. The world of men had changed;
but the barren rocks remained the same — a vast
St. Michael anchored in a tepid sea, its crusted
slopes rotting and quivering with humid heat,
while around its verge a multitude of men of
many races toiled in defiance of sun and sand,
some as sentinels of an empire, but the most in
the whimsical hope of insuring a happy old age.
A mist of coal dust rose about the mail-
steamer. Ports were closed; fans droned hope
lessly in the stifling cabins; distraught passen
gers wandered helplessly about the deck, mop
ping their faces, or stood at the port rail with
glasses screwed to their eyes, gazing at Sheikh
Othman, where they hoped for a sight of the
venturesome Turks who had intruded to the
very threshold of Aden. A few tossed idle coins
among the coal-coolies, not realising that these
were Bedouins and Fuzzy-wuzzies, men of un-
conquered tribes. But none made a move to go
ashore. The Scotch skipper, bound for Singapore to
take command of a tanker, was standing beside
me, poking his pipe gently in my ribs to empha-
[32]

A Bit of the Aden Bazaar, With the Choki, or Jail, on the Left.

Nf^v^22

•4

§£%£

The Drying Water-hole, a Remarkable Impression of Thorn Bush and Animal Life — Oryx and Impalla.
SOUTH OF SUEZ
sise a message for one of the pilots. Behind me
the deck steward, a merry fellow, unseemly on
a P. & O., was dancing to amuse some children.
"Ho," he wheezed, stopping suddenly and fol
lowing my gaze shoreward, "there ain't many
what goes ashore here, sir."
"Ay," said the skipper, eyeing him commis-
seratingly under half-closed lids, "we're aware
o' that. But can ye tell me," he added, as the
idea occurred to him, "what's become of the wee
lads that dive for pennies?"
The steward's face lighted with joy. "Ain't
you heard abaht that, sir? W'y, last trip ort,
whilst the passengers was throwin' them money,
along comes a shark and bites a little shaver
raight in two."
The skipper glared at him.
"Swelp me Gawd, sir," protested the steward,
shrilly. "I seen it wiv me own eyes."
That put the cap of gloom on all my antici
pations, because, for me, the one redeeming fea
ture of Aden's rocks was the living water that
danced on the sandy shores. So I delayed no
longer. I sought out my poetic companion, who
was characteristically engaged in one of those
earnest and lingering farewells that make sea-
[33]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
voyages so very pleasant, and escorted him firmly
to the head of the gangway. Then I went back
for a few words with the Girl from Keppel
Harbor. We were quite sure we should meet
again ... in Penang, perhaps.
"Insh'allah," she said ; and we both laughed.
The little Somali boys rose, grinning, to their
feet, flung their weight on the long sweeps, and
away we went, foaming across the blue water.
We swirled past a grey British cruiser, a Rus
sian transport, in and out among high-pooped
dhows with red Mohammedan flags fluttering
astern and white sails swelling out hke the
breasts of swans, and straight across the bow of
the fussy Tadjoura headed out of harbour on its
weekly trip to D'jibouti, the port of the Abyssin
ian traders, across the gulf. We bumped the
wet stone steps of the Abkari landing, and the
baking, pitted rocks of Aden rose before us.
Instantly the soft memories of overnight
slipped from our minds. We were in a world
of work once more. We registered ourselves in
the little thatched cottage of the harbour po
lice, and were met by the Englishman whom I
was relieving. The sun had treated him well.
Except that he was somewhat anaemic and prone
[34]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
to fever, over-silent, and with muscles that were
slow to respond to his thoughts, he was little the
worse for his two and a half years. As a mat
ter of fact, he said Aden was a relief from the
Gold Coast.
"But you've been here before?" he asked as
the car threaded among the mixed mob back of
the landing-stage.
I admitted it. "But that was a different mat
ter," I protested. "I was homeward bound.
All I saw was Cowasjee's Parsi clerk feeding
his lions, and the stuffed mermaid in Mouna's."
The gloomy dejection that had fallen on my
companion vanished in an instant. He sat up
with a jerk.
"What did you say?" he demanded.
"Mermaid," explained the Englishman, turn
ing his head. "The fishermen catch them along
the coast. Nothing's changed," he added plac
idly. "The lions have grown up, and had to be
shipped to a zoo ; and they're building a railroad
to Sheikh."
He saw I was surprised.
"Well, not exactly a pukka railroad. The
military birds are doing it, of course — armoured
locomotives, and all that. They don't intend to
[35]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
pay dividends. But it's quite all right, just for
the sake of hearing the whistle at night. Sounds
like Euston — Euston — Euston. . . ."
The last words trailed off in a hoarse whisper.
I looked at him in astonishment. His eyes were
bulging, and his lips were fluttering. A camel-
cart had swung into the road in front of us, and
the Englishman was trying to concentrate in
time to avoid it. But his muscles were too late
in responding. We bent a mud-guard. The
Englishman murmured plaintively to himself,
and began to speak bitterly to the camel wallah
in Arabic and Swahili. The coolie resented it,
and a spindly Somali policeman came saunter
ing up, red tarbush cocked over his black brow,
splay feet gently slapping the roadway, swing
ing a teakwood club with the insouciant air of a
boulevardier. But we worked the car free and resumed our
way around the Crescent, where Queen Victoria
squats in leaden effigy upon a square block of
stone and marshals behind her a drab array of
hotels and pallid, flat-faced buildings hiding be
neath their porticos the activities of merchants,
shipping-agents, consuls, curio-venders, and mil
itary and naval outfitters. We ran past moun-
[36]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
tains of coal, and great sheds where the rattle
of the riveter's hammer rose above the lapping
of the waves, and through Hedjuff Gate on to
the dust-swept plain of Maala.
Here we came upon the little station, where
a tiny train was huddled behind a square, block
like locomotive covered with sheet metal. As we
approached, a whistle tooted, and the httle col
oured train moved away among other larger
blocks that were blue and white tinted godowns,
and across a flat, brown stretch splotched with
yellows and reds and big patches of blue sea;
and suddenly there flashed into my startled mem
ory a picture of myself as a very httle boy crawl
ing over an old Persian carpet, pushing a line of
coloured blocks around the border, and tooting
to myself with imaginative delight.
Beyond the station were the native shipyards,
where graceful dhows were being fashioned out
of seasoned teak from Burma, and the docks of
Maala village, piled high with congested cargo
— for Aden, though grim, is great. The ships
that come rolling into her port go staggering
out. When the Phoenicians were trading in
Tynan dyes, Aden was sending spices northward
for the embalming of Egyptian mummies; and
[37]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
now that the Phoenicians are no more, Aden
crams Welsh coal into great ships so that her
spices may still be carried northward.
The ships come laden with every variety of
merchandise — cotton goods, yarn, agricultural
implements, dynamos, motors, provisions, car
riages, and coal. The Aden gharry is sister to
the rig in which the old New England farmer
rides to town — sister, born of the same mother-
factory in some mill town on green slopes beside
the Housatonic; and the Somali's robe, copied
from a Roman toga, is spun from cotton plucked
by Carolina darkies. And the ships go out to
the west, sunk well below the water-line, choked
with hides, skins, spices, incense, and coffee,
brought hither in dhows from the Benadir coast
and all the Red Sea ports.
Ascending the steep, tortuous slope of the
Main Pass, we rolled through the deep, arched
cleft in the volcanic ridge where the bones of
Cain lie scorching in their tomb, and coasted
down into the crater. Here was my future
home. The eastern side of the extinct volcano
had fallen into the sea, and the sun blazed in
through the breach with all the fury of smothered
flames. The encircling mountains, rough, pitted,
[38]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
barren as a crusted grate, seemed to shut out any
possibility of a wind from the north, and filled
the air with the dusty odour of cinders.
So long as our car was in motion, dodging the
great lumbering camels of India and the grace
ful creatures of Arabia, sleepy donkeys laden
with panniers of water, ratthng automobiles, mil
itary motors — armoured or emblazoned with the
red cross — flocks of fawn-coloured goats, and all
the flowing mass of foot-traffic, the rush of air
kept us reasonably comfortable; but when we
had passed the first line of shops that front on
the maidan, and came to a stop in the shadow
of the great, rectangular, barrack-hke building
that was at once our office, godown, and bunga
low, the heat seemed suddenly to fall upon us
Hke thick, hairy blankets. We climbed languidly
up the long flight of stone-arched* stairs to our
mess quarters on the top floor, where a vast,
tiled dining-room opened through spacious por
ticos upon a broad veranda overlooking the blue
gulf. We sank into long chairs, and called for
first-aid. Over the dilapidated housetops of our Banian
neighbours the abandoned citadel of Cirrir rose
on our right, standing up against the white sky
[39]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
hke a stage setting of Bakst fixed for a drama,
awaiting the reluctant actors.
I took a cautious glance at my wilting com
rade. There was a wild, unsettled light in his
eye as he reached for a cool drink.
"Where," he demanded feverishly, "where can
I see one of those mermaids you were talking
about?" The hot days that followed were a blur of
business, broken only by the departure of my
companion for Mombasa, whence he was bound
for Uganda, where cool hills rear their misty
heights, and green, juicy grass grows underfoot.
There was httle opportunity to look about me.
I fell into a downy nest of work, for the mills
of New England and the New South spin
swiftly, and the Somahs and Abyssinians must
be clad. Gradually, however, as I found oppor
tunity to peer over the edge of my desk, I ob
served with delight that the cook was a Goanese
Catholic — Diego Fehce Fernandez — the house-
boys were Indian Mohammedans, the punkah-
wallah was an Arab follower of the Prophet and
read his Koran with diligence the while he fanned
the stagnant air, the dhobies were Somali maids,
and from the godown below came the giggles and
[ 40 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
chatter of two-score Hindu women with rings
on their fingers and bells on their toes, sifting
and sorting choicest longberry coffee from
Mocha and Harrar, destined for the percolators
of Manhattan and the Bronx.
After a while I stretched my arms and looked
about. . . .
For almost a year I lived upon that rock, hat
ing it as heartily as any one may. In all that
time I did not see a blade of grass, or taste of
fresh fruit, or smell the scent of a flower; nor
did I travel more than six miles in any direc
tion; for I was alien, and the British hnes were
particular, as their Turkish foes were ever on
the qui vive. Even the clubs offered scant at
traction: the Gymkhana, where sunburnt colo
nels danced about bare-armed and bare-legged,
vigorously intent on making small boys chase
tennis-balls ; the International, torpidly blinking
across its empty courts, contrasting with the
sprighthness that vanished when the German
merchants were sent to waste their festive talents
on the internment camp at Ahmednagar; and
the famous Union Club at Steamer Point, which
sits with its feet in the bay, wet outside, wet in
side, the only oasis in Aden, where, nevertheless,
[41]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
you pay extra for water with your meals, and
make or break a reputation according to your
skill as a mixer of cool and titillating potions.
Here late guests not long ago, seated upon
the gravel terrace, watched the flash of cannon
and the bursting shells that flared over the salt-
heaps of Khor Marksar. Here one evening I
noticed several generals, the secretary of an em
pire, and a bevy of colonels mingling unmarked
by the wilting crowd, whose interest was entirely
absorbed by the few ladies available for dancing
who still remained within the fortress. Here I
have messed at table with fourteen officers of
the army and navy, the only civilian among them,
listening to a conversation that was entirely of
bombs and ships and hydroplanes, of motorcars
and guns. There was hfe here, but it was
strangely one-sided, and, for all its turmoil and
change of characters, it ran in ruts.
A stranger from a passing transport walks
slowly on to the cement terrace, looking casually
about for familiar faces. Suddenly his expres
sion alters. "I'm damned," he says, approach
ing a seated group. "Fancy meeting you herel"
The seated friend does not even rise, but he
shakes hands and indicates a chair. "Pull up,"
[42]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
he says placidly. "Boy! What'U you have to
drink? Chota peg, boy. . . . Where you going?
Mesopot?" He introduces the others, and the
conversation drifts drearily along.
At a table where a number of us have been
messing for many days together, the youngest
officer, apropos of something or other, says to
the man on his right, "I was on your eleven,
wasn't I?"
"Why, yes," says the other, "I think so."
"Fancy that! I thought I recognised you.
But I know your younger brother better."
"Yes. James. He was killed about six
months ago. What are you going to have?"
"A gin-and-bitters, if you don't mind."
There has been a booming all morning. This
is not nice if it happens on mail day, because you
can't keep your mind on market prices when you
know there is action somewhere. At the club
in the evening there are some officers, unusually
dusty, hot, and surly. Some are playing bridge;
others are at the bar.
"What was the show to-day?" says some one.
The answer is grunts. "What happened?"
"Oh, strafe the beggars."
"What happened?" [43]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
"Usual thing: march out; shoot some guns;
march back. Beastly hot, too. They got Blake
ley. Bit of shrapnel."
And then you notice for the first time that
Blakeley is not at his bridge-table querulously
interrogating his partner.
One night I met a major who is well known
among the Lambs in New York. He had just
come out of Somaliland, where he had been trot
ting after the Mad Mullah on camelback. He
laughed when I pointed out the absence of chol
eric colonels.
"You ought to meet Ashton," he said. "It
was pretty generally understood that he didn't
want any one shooting around his compound.
Well, a young sub who didn't know anything
about the rule shot a bird near the colonel's gate.
The colonel saw him at the mess later, and gave
him a most awful call.
" 'But where was the harm?' said the sub.
'Why  V
"'Why?' shouted the colonel. 'Why? Be
cause I, Colonel Bernadotte Fitz-Wilham Ash
ton, Commanding His Majesty's Ninety-
eleventh Camel Strawcrumpers, damn well say
[44]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
you shouldn't! That's why, you impertinent
young scoundrel, you!' "
But the drab curtain falls. There are no chol
eric colonels in Aden. They are too busy with
Turks to bother about birds. And I was gen
erally too busy with cotton to bother about colo
nels. Let me tell you, there's not much that's
drab about business here.
Squatted on the floor of dingy shops with a
press of natives about, puffing sweet-scented
Banian cigarettes, I discussed weave and weight
with naked yellow men from Cutch, and brought
into being contracts as lusty as war babies.
Climbing over heaps of hides and plunging down
dark alleyways, I came to low-ceilinged godowns,
where, seated on piles of tusks, I argued with
grizzled Abyssinian hunters and brokers on the
relative prices of ivory in New York and Can
ton. In stifling godowns I watched the assem
bling of bales of skins of goat, sheep, gazelle, and
leopard, and hides of lion, zebra, and bullock,
destined for the tanneries of Boston and Phila
delphia. I visited pearl-merchants who poured
forth on velvet mats to tempt my hungry eye
quivering globules that were like the tears of
[45]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
laughter of a joyous mermaid. This reminds
me that the last wail of my old comrade, bound
for the black districts of Central Africa, had been
for a sight of a mermaid sporting in the living
waters of the gulf.
"You're kidding me," he wailed as the bum-
boat leaped toward his steamer. "It's impos
sible. There's no such thing."
"Oh, but, sir, there is," protested an obsequious
Parsi passenger in the bumboat. "I have my
self seen one, sir, stuffed, in the shop of Mouna."
My comrade shuddered.
"The natives eat them," I added.
"You always have to contribute your httle bit
of disgusting comment," he said savagely.
"Oh, well," I remarked serenely, "it won't be
the last time you'll come in contact with flesh-
eaters." He answered this with a glare of stern com
passion. Anyway, he had not seen a mermaid.
And I had. . . .
In the evening, when most Europeans fore
gathered in the clubs for tea and tennis or bridge
and billiards, adding bit by bit to the crust of the
conventions of their race, I sometimes found my
self alone in the bazaars, amazed at the variety
[46]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
of human hfe, overwhelmed at the thought of
the quantity and diversity of unheard-of ideas
that must seep through these strangely stirring
minds, and thanking God in my heart that I
have ears to hear and eyes to see, though much
that I observed was hke phantoms passing
through the fog that surrounds us all. Vassan-
jee takes a flea gravely from his wrist and with
gentleness deposits it upon the ground, for who
knows what soul is chained within? Sammbu
walks wide of the village well with glassy eyes,
for he has seen a devil sitting on the stone. Who
knows? Perhaps he has; I see germs in every
puddle. And poor Yusuf Sangoi cannot sleep;
he still grieves for the lost days of his mad, merry
youth when he was lord high executioner for his
holiness the Mad Mullah. Is he any worse than
the two prim ladies four hundred yards away
who put their heads together over an unconscious
snub administered by the general's wife, and
damn the reputation of poor, giddy little Mrs.
Gaylor? I cannot say. My eye is only for colour —
the futurist daubs of the bazaar, a pattern of
races that cannot be copied: Banians of Cutch,
Parsis of Bombav, Hindus of Bengal, Somalis
[47]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
in togas whose patterns were looted from the
last camp of Augustus, proud Abyssinians with
stubble beards, Nubian slaves degenerated into
free sweepers, Jews with danghng curls and
watery eyes, Arabs with the grace and pride of
Spaniards, Persians from the Gulf, flat-nosed
Swahilis from Mombasa, Armenians, Greeks,
and their brother Levantines. Dirty and clean,
beggar and sultan, they shoulder their way
through hfe together, glad to be alive and un
ashamed of their emotions — wailing their grief
in public, or laughing aloud so that all the world
may see their happiness.
"It is fated," says the merchant to the pleading
beggar. "God will provide for you."
"Verily," says the man in rags, "we belong to
God, and unto Him we shall all return. May
He make no loneliness in thy case." And the
merchant pays the dole.
"Bismillah!" says he, and dusts his finger-tips.
Down the dark alleys I made my way, snif
fing the spicy odours as a hillman sniffs the per
fume of the deodars, and even the stenches were
not unpleasant to my nostrils. Vague arches
reared their mystic curves above me; there were
whispers in the dark and the alluring tinkle of
[48]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
bracelets ; uncertain chords of music drifted over
the housetops; flames flickered in the cavernous
gloom of the eating-houses; I stumbled over
milch goats, and blundered among charpoys.
In the broader thoroughfares I climbed around
recumbent camels munching their fodder from
the hands of tender guardians who, beyond the
fetters of the law, would have dehghted to bury
their knives in a Kafir.
The road is a current of varied life, moving
forward and backward, eddying around the
gaming-tables and the stalls of venders of dates
and melons, or down past the choki and gharry
stand, where a few dilapidated American mo
tor-cars have taken their place as inconspicu
ously as the old chpper ships that used to ride
in the lee of Cirrir in the good days when
the Marblehead skippers came swaggering up
Aidroos Road, and the consul flew his flag in
Crater. I ran into an old friend.
"Hello," said Mohammed. "Come. Let us
not talk here. We will have coffee."
So I went with him to drink coffee at his
divan; and I was glad, for there I found two
sultans, a grand vizier, and five merchants who
[ 49 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
had come from Muscat in dhows with cargo of
dates and rugs and honey.
Squatting on Shirazi rugs with our backs to
the walls, or bolstered up with fine cushions, we
sipped Arabian coffee, flavoured with cardamom
and cinnamon, and gravely passed the hookah-
tubes from hand to hand as we gossipped on
many topics. The merchants said little. Their
skin was still dry and wrinkled from the expo
sure of their long voyage, and they wore
their fine brocades and hair-plaited turbans with
ill comfort. The sultans were ingenuously ab
sorbed in a game of parchesi ; so the grand vizier,
beaming at me over a pair of steel-rimmed spec
tacles, suggested chess.
He was a genial old fellow with a stubby, red
beard and smooth-shaven upper hp. He had
the head of a Barcelona boatman, save for his
tightly wound turban and the silk scarf about
his neck; but he played a swift, devastating
game, and in less than fifteen minutes, shifting a
rook, he cried out:
"Sheik el mat!" . . . And my king was gone.
As I moved away from the bright glare of the
piazza into the darkness once more, I heard a
lattice rattle lightly above me, a murmur of
[50]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
voices, and the sound of suppressed laughter ; and
in my heart there suddenly leaped a joyous and
indefinable emotion, for I was young, and the
stars twinkled merrily in the dark canopy of the
sky, the night was soft about me, and a woman's
laughter was music in my heart.
I arrived at the Mess late for dinner.
An Irish captain had dropped in for pot luck
with my messmate. He had come with news,
for Kut had fallen and Townshend was taken.
The captain's brother was with Townshend, and
my messmate had been up the gulf for five years,
so they fell naturally into argument.
"Here," said the captain, planting a musty
mango for a marker, "is Kut — and the river to
Basra runs here — and the pipe-line comes down
from the oil fields somewhere about there  "
He marked the lines across my table-cloth
with a knife, and took up his positions with
crusts of bread. My messmate accepted battle ;
and the argument continued until the little Arab
boy fell asleep over the punkah rope, and the
butler came to make his nocturnal salaams, while
a tom-tom throbbed near some distant mosque.
Afar off I could hear the dull hammer of cannon.
In the morning a grinning, bare-legged Arab
[51]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
boy comes staggering pigeon-toed into the office,
bearing a huge tray of dates, candied fruits, and
bottles of rose cordial. This is duly handed over
to Diego Felice Fernandez, and I am presented
with a complimentary note from Menahem and
an invitation to call. It is a business call, but
there is a matter of friendliness, for the old Jew
and myself understand each other. He is the
greatest merchant between Cairo and Bombay,
the landlord of much in Port Said and more in
Aden. His head is sound, his manner is gentle,
and he judges people shrewdly. With his red
tarbush pushed back from his forehead, his
round face beaming pinkly above his white whis
kers, his eyes twinkling, he has the air of a benev
olent patriarch. He likes Americans for their
fraternal spirit, and he told me a little story that
makes me happy.
One Sabbath he embarked on a boat at Jaffa,
having purchased and paid for a first-class ticket.
For some inexplicable reason the captain ob
jected to him and his companion travelling first
class, and insisted that he pay a bonus or leave
the ship. The Jew could not pass money on the
holy day. In the midst of the altercation an
American came by. He stopped, listened.
[52]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
"Young man," he said, "don't worry for a mo
ment. I'll pay the difference, and you can fix
it up with me at Port Said."
Menahem has forgotten his name! But who
was President of the United States thirty-odd
years ago? He was the man.
It's curious that the kindly act of a President,
done before I was born, should be of material
assistance in the sale of goods turned out by the
most modern of American mills. The ripple
started at Jaffa still beats heavily on the Arabian
shores. Down the street is another friend, Mohammed
Bazara. Not only is he a rich man; he is also
a sheikh. In his divan you would think him a
poor merchant, were it not for his proud bearing
and languid grace. He is thin, wears a long,
thin linen robe ; his face is long and saturnine and
topped with a httle white skull-cap, or sometimes
a simple yellow turban, while upon his feet are
well-trod sandals. Upon his chin is a meagre
tuft. He is continually reciting his beads, while
his mind swiftly turns over the bullish tendencies
of the American market, and the inroads of In
dian and Japanese cotton. We have done each
other favours, so we are at ease. As a special
[53]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
treat he has brewed for me a cup of China tea.
"It is genuine China tea, the finest," he as
sures me, who have drunk it forty times a day in
the dusty yamens of northern Shansi, in the
moist, slimy alleyways of Shengfeng. He of
fers it to me in a tumbler, like a miniature mug
of beer. It is thick and syrupy, and he stirs in
more sugar, using an indelible-ink pencil in lieu
of a spoon, so that the amber fluid becomes tinged
with an exquisite purple that looks hke a Persian
cordial and tastes like the devil.
I leave him to call on Bhagwandass Dewjee,
whom I find squatting on a table in a murky
shop, picking his teeth with an air of abstraction.
He is considerably more than half naked, and
gives me the irreverent impression of a Buddha
who has been on a bat. He bestows on me a
toothless grin, a moist hand, and a sickeningly
sweet Banian cigarette which I smoke with satis
faction. Then we talk of Manchester mills, and
the shortage of dyes; for Bhagwandass, despite
the caste mark on his forehead, is a heavy buyer,
and knows his business.
Thus the film rolls before me. When I tire of
the bazaar, I switch to the clubs. When I
weary of the clubs, I turn and make my apolo-
[ 54 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
gies for social delinquencies over fragrant tea
poured by fair hands. When I feel the desire
for a mental stimulant, I lounge into one of the
hotels at Steamer Point or the outer office of
Dinshaw Cowasjee's, where skippers from the
shivering and simmering seas curse with delight
at meeting, and grunt with disgust when the
Parsi clerk hands them their papers and they
know the bumboat is thumping at the landing-
stage impatient to be off. Here I listen to true
tales that would make me a liar to repeat — tales
of sea-serpents, of submarines, of skies that fall
and seas that writhe, of fight with fists and mar-
linspikes and flames.
Again, I step through a portiere, following
the majestic figure of Mohammed Omer, his
heavy, black-and-white silk turban with its tas
sels of pearls marking the way through a gloomy
passage. Then suddenly all thought of Aden
falls away; the rasping roar of dusty winds is
hushed; my own dull spirit seems to take on a
consciousness of other days, and in my mind runs
the poetry of Omar, in my ears sound the songs
of Hafiz. A blaze of light, a jumble of vivid
colour against an opulent background of rugs
and cushions from Sanaa, Serabend, and Mousal,
[55]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
the pulsing music of high-pitched voices accom
panied on lute and flute and drum, a soft haze
of smoke, and the throaty purring of two hun
dred narghilehs ! Far at the end of the pavihon
a youth in gorgeous raiment sits cross-legged on
a dais with a scimitar before him. He is half
stupefied by the kart leaves which he chews. Be
low him there are figures swaying in the rhythm
of an Egyptian dance. We advance in a haze;
a servant bawls out the announcement of our
coming, and our foreheads and hands are
smeared with attar of roses. The guests begin
to file forward, flinging handfuls of coins
into a great brazen tray which rings with
the clash of the silver; and the young man
descends from his dais and dances before them.
To me it is a dream. To Mohammed it is
a grim reality. The boy is embarking upon
his first matrimonial adventure; and Moham
med joins with him to celebrate his sixth
wedding. "Why not?" says Mohammed, a smile flashing
across his dark, handsome face. "May we not
be happy?"
My youthful French companion, crippled in
the wars, leans heavily on my shoulder, but rolls
[56] '

SOUTH OF SUEZ
his large eyes fervently toward the ceiling, and
murmurs :
"Alia ul Allah!"
Mohammed smiles deprecatingly.
"Have you seen her?" pleads Max.
"Nay," says Mohammed. "It is not our cus
tom. I do not see her until the night of the
nuptials." "Trustful man," says Max, and begins to hum,
"Je sais que vous etes jolie."
This is all very well. There is life and action
and colour in all this, but it is very deceiving.
Expose it to three hundred and sixty-five days
of sunlight, under whose glare all colours fade.
Drown the music in the roar of hot, dust-laden
winds that sweep over the lips of Crater and
smother the town in dust and dirt. Cripple all
action with the flame of fever, the twinge of rheu
matism, the ache of neuralgia; starve it with the
vain desire for fresh vegetables and an empty
craving for the taste of fresh fruit. Drop your
self in the middle of it for a year or two!
Medical men agree that the effect is not nice.
The mind actually deteriorates, the body becomes
torpid. A period of long indifference is sud
denly followed by bursts of inane fury. Trifles
[57]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
are the beginning of tempests. A sneeze starts
a whirlwind. The memory becomes erratic; im
portant matters are overlooked and not worried
about, while little things cause endless irritation.
One becomes oppressed with the monotony of
life, like a caged animal, indifferent to the pass
ing throng, snarling over bones, and sleeping.
At night I sleep on the roof, and grow on in
timate terms with the constellations hanging
above my head. The moon and the stars seem
to set the still atmosphere aquiver with their
silver radiance.
There are other watchers from the rooftops.
From the shadows about me come the murmur
of voices, whispers, laughter, the fitful cry of a
baby, the grumble of a disgruntled man. But
after midnight the town slumbers. One night
an extraordinary thing occurred. For over a
week we had suffered a constant temperature
higher than blood heat. The air was saturated
with salt moisture, and we sweltered and writhed
with the tortures of prickly heat.
There was little sleeping on the rooftops —
just a vague, restless stirring and the subdued
whimpering of unhappy children. A cyclone
was raging in the Arabian sea, which only added
[58]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
to the weight of our atmosphere. After three
sleepless nights I managed to doze off sitting in
an upright chair. At three in the morning I
was awakened by an unbelievable sound — thun
der rumbling in the hills. At first I thought
the Turks were attempting a nocturnal surprise.
Then I felt a cold thrill run up my spine. Cool
rain was beating in through the porticos! A
babble of astonished and happy voices broke over
the town. There was laughter; there were
shouts; and in the white glare of the lightning
you could see people running about dragging
their charpoys under shelter, or with their, faces
turned up mutely to the drenching darkness
above. Rain is by no means unknown. The distant
sky is often sad, though it sheds no tears. But
when the rain does begin to beat on the burning
ridge, it usually comes in a cloudburst. Cata
racts leap two or three hundred feet from the
crests of the denuded mountains and come rush
ing down the gorges in torrents. The eight-mil
lion-gallon tank — the work of Romans or Per
sians (no one seems to know, though their work
endures!) — fills up in half an hour, and the water
goes rushing through the heart of the town, down
[59]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
a broad nullah and into the sea. The streets
run like rivers, and the thick, white adobe roofs
collapse like snow beneath the downpour. Half
an hour after the rain has ceased, the main roads
are dry.
In the "winter" months, when the temperature
drops to eighty, the evenings seem cool and the
hills become inviting places to climb. They rise
almost two thousand feet in the air. Upon the
crests a perfect gale may be blowing, or a breath
less stillness hang. After the sun sinks its
head upon a bed of purple and gold, slipping
under the horizon as though beneath a coverlet,
darkness pours hke a fluid into the cup of Crater.
The humming of the human hive mounts upward
through the stilling air ; it is a distinct hum, only
occasionally punctuated by the soft low of cat
tle, the throaty roar of a camel, the distant bleat
of a motor-horn.
The mountains are lonely, deserted. Few
care to climb in them, for they are dangerous.
They are not the granite slopes of home. The
rocks are rotten and crumbly; they slip from
underfoot; if you reach out to seize a handhold,
it crumbles beneath your grasp. Pebbles go
skittering away, and the roar of an avalanche
[60]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
follows. Deep chasms gape suddenly at your
feet. You find yourself without warning on
the downward slope of a crest that overhangs
the broiling sea. The very ugliness and danger
are the chief attractions. There is a bit in par
ticular that fascinates me.
Looking from this bleak pinnacle — the ughest
bit of mountain in the world, I think, with its
masses of rotting rock, its iron crust curling in
ragged edges, gypsum oozing from the crevices,
vast stains of stinking guano, chalky bones
bleaching on the ledges, and the unclean hawks
wheeling in clouds over all, uttering their deso
late cries — it seems to me to symbolise the end
of all things.
Southward, I know, he Socotra and Guarda-
fui, the verge of the ancient universe when the
stars were watchlights and the earth stood on
pins. Over to the westward, below the melting
horizon, stretches the Benadir coast, whence
came the African wizard to seize Aladdin's lamp,
and where even to-day a black veil of mystery
hangs over the strange land and the fierce activi
ties of the Mad Mullah. But eastward, where
the broad beach sweeps away in an immeasur
able arc, vanishing in the misty distance in the
[61]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
direction of Oman, and northward behind the
dim purple mountains where Nasrani never
dares to tread, an ancient world, yet new to me,
and overflowing with romance and adventure,
hes tantalisingly near, but closed tighter than
the passes beyond Darjeeling.
If you are caught on the mountains after dark,
you snuggle close in some cranny, thank God for
a pipe and stick there until the sun leaps out of
the Indian Ocean. But when the moon is high
and clear, the mountains are safe.
At two o'clock one morning I found myself
with a Swiss companion on the highest peak.
A wisp of cloud hung about us. We curled up
in the rocks and slept. An hour later my com
panion awoke with* a cry, clutching me by the
arm. From a placid* dream he had awakened
to stare down a slope tumbling two thousand feet
into the sea, while behind him black cliffs fell
sheer away into unplumbed darkness.
The air was cool. We descended slowly.
We came through the hollow-echoing tanks that
may have once given back the sound of Roman
picks or Persian sledges, and on into the bazaar.
Silence hangs heavy about us. The waning
moon seems to touch the crest of the mountain-
[62]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
ous ridge with a silver streak. A fisherman
passes with his nets flung over a withered, brown
shoulder. Suddenly over the sleeping town a loud call
echoes from minaret to minaret. The bazaar
sighs and stirs about me; my heart leaps in my
throat, for the muezzin is calling the world to
prayer. The sun climbs swiftly out of the east; the
bazaar begins to murmur and clatter; the
little world of men resumes its fretful uproar.
Against the bleak mountains the call to prayer
still echoes : There is no god but God!
But Meghjee Permanund, the Hindu, finger
ing his bolt of cloth, murmurs to himself:
"The risk is in the mouth, but the profit is be
yond the head."

163]

A Somali of the Benadir Coast. The Wonderful Teeth
of the Somalis are Preserved With the Mushmak, a
Chewed Twig.

The First Picture of the Apostate Prince, Lidj Yassou,
Taken in the Turban of a Mussulman.

Lidj Yassou, as the Reigning Prince of Abyssinia, in His Most Gorgeous Raiment.

Cross and Scimitar in Abyssinia
I. The Prince Dons a Turban
ABOUT a year after my arrival at Aden
there occurred in Abyssinia an event
shrouded yet rich in the mystic gloom of
medievalism; and, at the same time, behind the
curtain of its isolation, stirring with all the
clashing tumult of contemporary times. I saw
much of it — as through a shimmering mist —
but, so far as I know, no words have as yet been
written in Enghsh to describe it, save such per
haps as have taken their way to the dusty
archives of Whitehall.
What I did not myself hear and see, I
learned from chance-flung phrases over the
shoulders of warriors on cantering ponies; over
glasses of tedj in thatched tokhuls; amid the
clatter and confusion of native troop trains; at
dainty luncheons amid incongruous settings from
the hps of silent men of great experience; and
[65]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
particularly over a map sketched on a scrap of
paper by a Germano-Ethiopean, while at the
other end of the room there was uproar and
crashing of chairs as some Greeks and renegade
Italians struggled furiously over a matter of no
consequence to us.
If I have slipped in particulars, it is due to
mixed tongues, incoherent phrases, and the dis
tractions of personal events — which I pass over
lightly. . . .
My good fortune, then, found me in Djibouti,
the port of French Somaliland, stranded, wait
ing for a boat that never came, just at the time
when Abyssinian troubles had swelled to the
bursting point. For at least a year all North
east Africa had been feeling the restiveness of
too long a period of peace. Sporadic outbreaks
in Somaliland and in the Soudan gave sufficient
indication that the hot lid was quivering. Dis
trict Commissioners of conquered provinces, thin-
lipped, went coolly on with their work, and sent
in reports that were forgotten in the tumult of
the times.
Suddenly Somalis raided along the Juba River,
and white settlers and officials were wiped out;
a report came that the Mad Mullah was again
[ 66 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
making hell along the Benadir coast; Great
Britain unexpectedly found itself with a formi
dable war on its hands at Darfur in the Soudan;
the desert Dankahs began to cut at the metre-
gauge French railway that extends from Dji
bouti, on the Gulf of Aden, almost to Addis-
Abeba, capital of Abyssinia, about five hundred
miles westward; and then came the news that
threatened to set Africa on fire from Mombasa
to Suez.
Lidj Yassou, ruler of Abyssinia, had openly
apostasised from the ancient Christian Coptic
religion, the faith of his people, and had declared
himself of the family of Imam, through whose
veins ran the blood of the Prophet. Abandon
ing his capital, he had gone to Harrar, the
ancient seat of the government, which lies close
to British Somaliland, and there openly gave his
sympathy to the fanatic Somalis. . . .
While I was seated at an iron table in front
of the Cafe de la Paix, sipping grenadine, listen
ing abstractedly to the babel of voices about me,
and gazing helplessly across the blazing Place
Menelik, a friend, an energetic and resourceful
Frenchman, came, breezily up to me and placed
a paper upon the table. [67]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
"Sign it," he said; "and to-morrow we shall
go. "Where?" I asked.
"To Abyssinia. Where else? The Railway
Company is going to send a train through to
bring these evacuees back to their posts." He
scornfully indicated the gibbering crowd of Ar
menians, Arabs, Abyssinians, and stray Somalis
who surrounded us. "You sign the paper to
acquit the Company of responsibility. You
understand?" So the next day at dawn we were off.
The train was a conglomerate string of wagons
separated into four classes, arid jammed with
men, women, and children of many races from
Asia, Europe, and Africa. Unmindful of the
sweltering heat, they stared with bulging eyes
across the quivering deserts and along the rugged
slopes of the barren mountains where nothing
seemed to five save heavy-maned baboons who
fled behind rocks and cursed the train as it
panted by. As each unharmed station hove in
view, the evacuees cheered shrilly, and made
sorties en masse with wine bottles, canteens, tin
basins, and chatties to catch the overflow from
the watering tank. The windows of the cars
[68]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
bristled with rifles, and every man hung a heavy
revolver upon his hip and twirled his moustache
with nervous fierceness as the danger points ap
proached. The Greeks, seeking favours, fawned
upon the Abyssinians, embracing them and pat
ting their hands affectionately. Babies whined
fretfully; women shouted shrilly to their men;
men and boys tumbled excitedly over each other
in frantic efforts to regain their seats when the
engine whistled; for to be left behind was a
terrifying thought. In my compartment, my
three French companions, after half an hour's
friendly and animated conversation, offered each
other cigars, drew books from their packs, and
gave themselves up to reading. One read the
Revue des Deux Mondes; another, "Diseases of
the Eye"; and the third, Galsworthy's "Man of
Property." At Dire-Daoua, in the province of Harrar,
the human cargo was discharged in a jumbled,
vociferous stream which overcame the frenzied
Abyssinian Customs guards and flowed into the
town. That night while at dinner a message came
to my companion offering us the hospitality of
a native troop train if we wished to continue on
[69]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
to Addis-Abeba in the metropolitan province of
Shoa. We gladly accepted, and stumbling out
into the darkness, found the Chief Magistrate
down a dark lane. At the base of a baobab
tree, in the flickering fight of a candle, he glanced
at our passports, with his armed escort peering
over our shoulders, and willingly gave us per
mission to proceed.
Thirty-six hours later, in company with the
political director of the railway, we rode on
mule-back past the royal Guebi in Addis-Abeba,
the first Europeans to enter since communication
with the outer world had been cut.
I pass over the details of the upward journey
— the recent battles along the line; cattle wan
tonly slaughtered by raiders, and the bleaching
bones of men picked clean by hyenas and vul
tures; pillaged posts in lonely desert tracts; the
routing of Somalis, and the burning of their
village. Nor is it pertinent to describe ful-
somely the glorious aspect of the country — the
broad deserts of shimmering gold; the purple-
hued mountains; the rolling uplands; the deep
valleys with torrents of clear water; the lush
forests swarming with game; the vast herds of
cattle that strayed across the tracks ; the blossoms
[70]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
of scarlet tamarind, the Nile-green euphoebes
dusted with gold, the umbrella-like mimosas;
and, above all, the numerous birds of brilliant
hues that flashed like hving gems in the green
depths of the forests, or flickered hke broken
rays of sunlight across the open plains. . . .
At the very time when we were penetrating
further into this glorious country, discovering an
added charm with every passing mile, its deposed
sovereign, far behind us, was crossing the tracks
and seeking the safety of an exile in the scorch
ing desert wilderness of Danakil. . . .
On the continent of Africa there remains to
day only this one nation, without exception, that
dares call itself independent.
The ancient empire of "Ethiope," more gener
ally known as Abyssinia, occupies the lofty
plateau which feeds the waters of the Abai River
and forms the eastern watershed of the White
Nile south of Khartoum on one side, and, on the
other, drains into the desert land along the lower
Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. With a terri
tory of over three hundred thousand square miles,
and a population of almost eight million natives,
this nation has watched the rise and fall of many
peoples ; has stood firm when the floods of
[71]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
fanatic Islam poured around it, lapping at its
buttresses; and has thrown back with compara
tive ease the invasion of European powers. The,
Mahdi, who hurled himself unhesitatingly upon
the might of Britain gathered at Omdurman,
could make no inroad upon Abyssinian territory ;
the Arabs, who overran warlike Nubia, were
powerless to do more than make occasional
forays across the northern border to snatch slaves
for the Yemen; and the Somalis, respected by all
other of their enemies, are looked upon with
careless scorn by the Christian warriors of the
west and north.
It is strictly a feudal nation, with all the char
acteristics of mediaeval Europe, yet it can call
into the field a regular army twice as great in
numbers as the standing army of the United
States. Furthermore, every freeman is well
acquainted with arms and irregular warfare,
and becomes a warrior at the call. Bullets and
empty cartridge shells pass as currency in the
market place. I have not seen an unarmed
Abyssinian; yet in the days of Menelik a
traveller blundering through the country could
go from north to south, east to west, by the lone
liest paths and to the remotest hamlets, as secure
[72]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
as a nocturnal wanderer along the Victoria Em
bankment. When finally Menehk's days were numbered,
however, and the old "Lion of Judah" felt his
firm tissues relaxing and his keen senses stupe
fying with the general decay, he assembled the
great rases about him, and pledged them by
most solemn oath to support as his successor
to the throne of Ethiopea, Lidj Yassou, his
comely grandson, son of his daughter, Waizaro
Shoa Rogga, and Bas Mikael, King of the Wallo
country. And they, still wholly dominated by the
will of the inflexible old chieftain, yielded to his
wishes. It is certain, though, that they looked
upon the heir to the throne with secret disfavour,
as he was obviously a weak and vacillating youth,
possessed of that unfortunate comeliness seldom
associated with stamina, and rendering its pos
sessor an unconscious victim of every flattering
suggestion. Menehk was a great monarch, and his deeds
have glorified his name, so that even in this day
to swear "by Menehk" is an oath more binding
than the most sacred vow. Under his rule the
nation rose to high dignity, was feared by its
neighbours, and earned the respect of the Great
[73]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Powers. But when he disappeared behind the
mysterious veil that was drawn before the last
stage of his waning life, and Lidj Yassou by
easy gradients found himself upon the throne of
Ethiopea, the country relapsed once more into
its deep-rutted medievalism. The fine roads
of the capital became rock-studded troughs and
quagmires; justice became fickle; the stern laws
of Menelik were merely memories; indifference
succeeded the vigilance of old; httle remained of
the simple splendour of the past save the un
alterable beauty of the billowing mountains and
the gentle vales.
To all degrees of this general sinking back
of their nation the rases were not unaware.
They watched with bitterness and dismay the
wanton indifference of Menelik's successor, al
ready a prey to sycophants, and scornful of the
advice of his elders. Bound by the oath of their
late monarch, they feared to act; and, moreover,
the occasional flashes of brilliancy displayed by
the Prince revived their flagging hopes. How
ever, two elements finally began to identify them
selves so closely with the Prince's destiny as to
render his ultimate fate certain. These were his
increasing sensuality and his overpowering
[ 74 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
superstition. He yielded irresistibly to the
dusky charms of his countrywomen; and then,
with whetted passion, looked for conquests
among the fairer Arabs and Egyptians who had
passed before his smouldering gaze. Here, how
ever, his rehgion and the traditions of his people
raised formidable barriers that could not be
passed unless overthrown.
Like many before him who lacked the strength
to guide their own destinies, Lidj Yassou began
then to consult the famous sorceresses of the
land. Chief of these was a wrinkled daughter
of Islam who daily received tribute of earth and
water from far countries, and whose potent spells
could bind the very Nile. By her art many an
upstanding warrior had found himself at night
fall changed into an hysterical hyena, and it was
common belief that if she would release the spell,
more than a few croaking crows would speak
once more the soft syllables of Ethiopea. Lidj
Yassou wore an amulet charmed by her. None
knows what weird suggestions she whispered in
his ear, but the result was becoming manifest.
One simple evidence of the ambition that grew
within him was a silly passion for photographs.
In his capital there was a foreigner from the
[ 75 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Levant who monopohsed the making of portraits
have paid with the honour of his daughter. His
collection numbered hundreds of portraits in a
of the Prince — for which patronage he is said to
great variety of attitudes and in many costumes ;
but the most significant of all was one showing
the Prince wearing a turban.
This simple portrait, the plainest in all the
collection, vividly illumines the Prince's conduct.
By becoming a convert to Islam he believed that
in one act he could become ruler over half the
world, easily impose his might upon the rest,
and at the same time secure to himself all the
sensual delights that are permitted the lax
Mussulmans of the present day.
No one knows exactly what intrigues were
now initiated, but the first alarming evidence of
his intended apostasy was a flag which he pre
sented to the Turkish Minister. This flag bore
the pregnant phrase :
"La Ilahi Ilallah, Mohammed ressoul Allah."
Immediately the Ministers of the Allied Na
tions, which were then deeply involved in war,
were aroused. The British Minister was par
ticularly concerned, as arms were being sent
from Abyssinian arsenals to the Somalis across
[76]

mBaimsSmwmKKMn
Negro Border Tribesmen From the Equatorial Provinces of Southern Abyssinia.

The Beau Brummel of a Small Native Village Near
Nairobi.

Somali Women of the Ogaden and Somaliland Are
as Fine of Feature as the Arab.

SOUTH OF SUEZ
the border, and the Soudan and British East
Africa were beginning to feel the consequent
unrest. Pourparlers commenced, in the midst
of which Lidj Yassou, with cynical indifference,
departed from the capital, having decided noth
ing, leaving the Government behind him in a
state of suspension. The Ministers vigorously
protested, but as there was no one to receive the
protest, their vigour was vain.
Now that action succeeded to dreams and
rumours, many startling reports came to the ears
of the Ministers.
It was learned that the Prince had visited
remote Djidjiga, where he treated the native
Sornalis as brothers and compatriots. They
made fantasia before him, and he presented them
with a banner upon which was an emblem with
a scimitar arranged in such a fashion as to indi
cate that it hung over the necks of aU Christians.
Without hesitation the Somalis thereupon ap
peared in their pubhc places, making fantasia,
and waving banners bearing this sinister emblem.
The Prince even went further and converted a
Christian Church, the property of the state, into
a mosque. Later he appeared at Dire-Daoua, in the
[ 77 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
famous coffee province of Harrar, then under
the governorship of young Bas Taffari, who was
destined to become the Regent. Bas Taffari
had particular reason for complaint; for a short
time before, when forty-five Abyssinians had
had their throats cut by Somalis of the Ogaden,
and the offenders had been duly captured and
sent in chains to Addis-Abeba for judgment,
Lidj Yassou not only pardoned them, but
treated them with distinction.
Upon his appearance in Dire-Daoua, the local
prelates, therefore, disturbed by the rumours
that were then rampant, and particularly con
cerned by the growing power of the Mussulmans
within the city, — a mosque having recently been
erected there, — appeared before him and urged
that some provision be made for a new Christian
Church. With a flash of wit that must have
struck the prelates aghast, the grinning Prince
said: "There is the new Mosque. What better
place to guard the Presence?"
Proceeding then to the walled city of Harrar,
he gave himself over openly to the friends of
Islam. Donning a turban, he went in company with
[78]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
his Mussulman friends to a mosque. Leaving
his sandals outside, he entered as a true fol
lower of the Prophet, going through the ablu
tions and prostrations with the punctihousness
of a convert. He then gave alms freely at the
doorway, as is the custom, and proceeded im
mediately to a hostel where there were women
to receive him, and champagne flowed. In this
city he espoused the daughter and the niece of
Abba Djifar, the daughter of the Emir Abdulali,
the daughter of Nagadras Mohamed Abou
Bekir, the daughter of Chief Adal, and many
concubines besides.
Harrar now became a gathering place for
Somalis and Dankalis. The former, haughty
and scornful, with snowy togas flung over their
shoulders, stalked through the streets, many
abreast, yielding place to no one, and handling
their spears with careless grace. The lean
Dankahs, glorying in the flesh-pots, squatted
about the hanging carcasses of freshly killed
sheep, cutting off dripping pieces with their
keen knives, eating the raw flesh. The Abys
sinians, meanwhile, ignored by their Prince, who
was now almost constantly surrounded by Mus
sulmans, smothered their fury in silence.
[79]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
One act that particularly incensed the Harrari
was over a point of law. It is the custom in
Abyssinia to maintain the cadi system. The
cadi sits in open court in the market place, and
before him offenders are brought, and cases
tried; and very often the bystanders are called
upon to make the decision. Well, one day
the Mussulmans accused their own cadi at
Harrar: "You drink beer and hydromal contrary to
the prescriptions of the Koran." Lidj Yassou
thereupon ordered him to be publicly judged
by the Christians.
"Think what it would mean," the Abyssinians
protested among themselves, "if he ordered
Mussulmans to judge us in a parallel case!"
Strangely enough, their sense of justice was
further deeply moved at the thought of Chris
tians being made judges of laws of which they
knew nothing.
Though astonishing, it is an evidence of Lidj
Yassou's fatuous egotism that he took it for
granted no serious opposition would be made
against his actions by the Abyssinians, par
ticularly by natives of Shoa, the metropolitan
[80]

South of suez
province, land of the ruhng race, and seat of
the capital, Addis-Abeba.
As a matter of fact, in Addis-Abeba a swift
and furious opposition did develop.
Both prelates and rases, overcome with in
dignation, met secretly and concerted plans
against the apostate Prince; while at the same
time the lesser chiefs and clergy were stirring
the freemen of Shoa to a patriotic and re
ligious fervour of revolt. In a remarkable peti
tion to Zeoditou, daughter of Menelik and aunt
of the Prince, they urged her, in the following
terms," to consider their grievances :
"Deliver us from our oath of fidelity, because
we will not submit ourselves to Islam, and we
do not wish to give up our country to the
stranger because of the malice of this Lidj
Yassou, who has conducted his royalty so badly.
We will not permit a Negus who has renounced
his faith to govern us ; and, finally, we will never
consent to change our religion."
Fed by expressions such as these, and fully
aware of the tragic and imminent danger in
which their country was placed, the nobles and
warriors of Shoa besought Zeoditou to take the
[81]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
throne. On the twenty-seventh of September,
1916, therefore, a coup d'etat was accordingly
effected in Addis-Abeba without any bloodshed
other than that caused by the bullets that flew
from the explosive rejoicings of the natives.
Waited upon by the nobles and a small army
of soldiers with many batteries of field guns,
Zeoditou ascended the throne. Lidj Yassou
was declared deprived of his royal rights and
prerogatives, and a solemn curse was pro
nounced upon him. Bas Taffari was made
Regent and heir to the throne.
Nothing could be richer in the picturesque
and pious medievalism of the occasion than the
concluding words of the gentle Empress, called
from her retirement to preserve the faith among
her people.
"Henceforth all my glory rests in you," she
said, "because after Menelik have I not said my
supreme adieu to all which is of this world? . . .
I pray the Lord to bless your noble resolutions
and to give His grace to all of you, the puissant
and valiant of Ethiopea, and at last to lead you
to good end."
More to the point, however, was the message
of his "Beatitude the Abouna Matheos, Servitor
[82]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
of Christ, son of the Evangelist St. Marc, and
Archbishop Primate of the Royalty and people
of Ethiopea."
Speaking with full authority of the Alex
andrian Synod of the Coptic Church, and backed
by the one hundred thousand members of the
clergy within Abyssinia, the message had the
full force of, and was strangely similar to, an
ancient Papal Bull of Excommunication. He
solemnly prayed that the offending Prince and
any one who denied the authority, ex cathedra,
of the Primate, should "incur the indignation of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost; that he incur anathema in the name of
the twelve Apostles and of the 318 Fathers of
the Council of Nice ; and that the malediction of
Arius and the reprobation of Judas fall upon
him . . . and I, Matheos, by my humble parole,
I excommunicate him. . . ."
At this solemn moment, the unfortunate
Prince, heedless of his impending doom, was
probably playing with one of the brainless toys
who had tripped him from his throne. . . .
When these messages were received in Dire-
Daoua and Harrar, a tumult immediately burst
forth. I do not know what action the Prince
[83]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
then took, but almost immediately his weaknesses
betrayed him. Spurred on by the daring and
wily Mussulmans who supported him, he made a
few weak, vain efforts to rise triumphant upon
the flood that had set against him. He looked
for support from the Somahs. In the mean
time, however, the Abyssinians in Harrar city,
having provoked the Somahs by gibes and in
sults to such a point of fury that a desert tribes
man finally struck one of them, fell upon them,
and with rifles, spears, and scimitars massacred
almost all the hated tribesmen that were within
the city. At the height of the slaughter, the
British Consul, appalled at the wanton blood
shed, went alone to Baltcha, the acting Governor
of the city, and urged that he make some efforts
to bring it to a stop.
Baltcha, most impressive of men, though a
eunuch, gave a casual order, and the slaughter
immediately ceased.
Nobody knew what turn the trouble would
now take, or what support the Prince could
count upon.
His father, Bas Mikael, King of the Wallo
country, was quiescent, and it was believed he
would ignore his son. To the south and east
[84]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
there were raids and skirmishes in lonely places.
One ambitious attempt was made by the Prince's
followers to get possession of the little railway
between Dire-Daoua and Addis-Abeba; but a
small force of Shoan troops arrived at the spot
a few hours before them, and having picked their
position, with a couple of mountain guns and
mitrailleuses they scattered and demorahsed
them, killing several hundred. The Prince,
hkewise, with a large force of Somahs, advanced
upon Harrar; but the Abyssinians went forth
and met them, and smashed them; and the
Prince, believing that all was now lost, no longer
trusting in the shining destiny that had been
burnished for him, fled with a few companions
into the fastnesses of the unconquered and un
explored land of Danakil. . . .
This, apparently, was the end of the Prince.
So easily had he been toppled from his throne,
and so .firmly established did the new Empress
appear to be fixed as the successor .of her father,
Menehk the Great, that the Shoans were rest
less and uneasy at their swift success. They
looked about them undecidedly. Something —
they seemed to feel — was, wanting. What ele
ment had they not taken into consideration? . . .
[85]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Having come safely through some of these
episodes, my companion and myself believed,
too, that the trouble was over in the capital. He
was eager to seize a commercial opportunity
that presented itself; and I, indirectly, was
similarly concerned. At the last moment, how
ever, we found that our impetuousness had
overcarried us, and that we had landed with
both feet in what looked like a promising trap.
And at the same time the Shoans, seizing their
weapons anew, prepared for genuine trouble.

[86]

One of the Last Pictures of Menelik II, King of Kings of Ethiopa, Seated in State With
Members of His Council.

Camp Visitors Along the Old Trade Route Between Nairobi and the Abyssinian Frontier.

U \;&**kc»%rtlttrir; Aitiw^"^°'w,'^1M"J*M«

II. Revenge of Abou "Roll-Them-Up"
IN Addis-Abeba itself there were rapid and
startling developments.
We suddenly learned that the railroad had
been cut behind us; all means of telegraphic
communication with the outer world had been
severed; and a large army was advancing upon
Addis-Abeba from the north, threatening to
destroy the city and annihilate its occupants, in
cluding the foreign Ministers, who, with a few
exceptions, were the only Europeans within the
city. We spent our time riding, exploring,
learning the lay of the land, catching up every
rumour that flew, and preparing for whatever
fate might befall us.
It came to me, as to many others, as a great
surprise that an army should be sweeping down
victoriously from the north when the weak
Prince had been blotted out of consideration
far to the south-eastward. We had believed
that his father, Bas Mikael, ashamed of the con
duct of his son, had watched his dethronement
[87]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Avith apathetic sorrow. Certainly when the
news first came to the Negus, King of the Wallo
country, that his wanton son had been hurled
from the high place, and was now a wanderer
in the deserts, he did nothing nor said a single
word to betray his thought. This silence was
taken by the emotional Shoans to indicate .that
the dark, stern old warrior stood strong for the
faith above all things, and. was ready to pledge
his fealty to Zeoditou.
The succession had been fully established;
and it was felt that the throne of the daughter
of Menelik was secure. Broken, the Somalis
had been scattered among the hills of their in
hospitable country; the Dankalis dispersed
across their burning sands; and the .fallen Prince,
with a diseased mind, was a wanderer in the
company of the disappointed and furious Mus
sulman, Abou Bekir, father of one of his con
cubines. In the conglomeration of villages
which form the capital of Shoa, all was serene.
Baltcha, the calm, pious, but ferocious eunuch,
held the place under his thumb with the same
imperturbability with which, in his good time, he
had stayed the massacre of Somalis in Harrar.
All that was necessary to consolidate the empire
[88]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
and to complete the harmony of its ancient
people was the reassuring presence of the Negus
Mikael. Eyes were turned unconsciously to the
north; ears were alert for news from Dessie;
every rider who came by Entoto was urged to
tell when the Negus would come. And finally
riders appeared in haste on blown ponies at
Ankober, and thence the wires hummed with the
intelligence that the Negus was on his way at
last, mounted on his war-horse, "Roll-them-up"
. . . and forty thousand warriors with him.
Unadvised by friends or counsellors, the
Negus had yielded to his pride. Tortured with
agony at the shame that had come upon his
family, he forgot the treachery to his God; he
scornfully ignored the sufferings of his country;
he thought only of his son, his comely Yassou,
blood of his blood, bone of his bone, an outcast,
despised and rejected by the people of Shoa.
Mindful of the scene where Menehk on his
deathbed had bound the rases by most solemn
oath to support the youth as their future em
peror, he cursed their treachery, and starting up
with his hand clutching the hilt of his scimitar,
swore that honour would be avenged.
To the north, the east, and the west, couriers
[89]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
on the swift horses of Wallo carried the word of
the Negus to his vassals. Over the rolling table
land of Wallo, into the dark, unexplored forests
by the shores of Tsana, across the deserts of
Tigre' went the call. The war drums throbbed
and thundered in remotest villages ; the tom-toms
beat by every nomad's camp ; there was a rattling
of lances, a grinding of new edges on old
scimitars, shrill war-songs that seemed to set the
desert stars to quivering; and then came the
rases of the North, leading their warriors by
tens and hundreds and thousands into inhospit
able Dessie, lapped in the rugged mountains,
where the dark, unsmiling Negus awaited them.
Mussulman and Christian in unnatural frater
nity, they then poured through the country of
the Menzes, devastating that unfortunate land.
Wherever life was encountered, death and deso
lation were left behind. Each village was sur
rounded, and the ruthless slaughterers slashed
everything that moved. Resistance was beaten
down as the tide beats through sedges. Omi
nous as the flight of vultures, the host, swollen
in numbers, inflamed with success, swept down
on Addis-Abeba.
They advanced as barbarians advance, irregu-
[90]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
larly, on horse, on mule, and on foot. Most
warriors had with them for attendants a squire,
a shield bearer, and a couple of slaves. In the
advance it was hard to distinguish master from
slave, for all were draped in robes of dirty
cotton cloth, with home-spun blankets on their
shoulders, and crude raw-hide sandals laced
across their feet. Of weapons they had every
variety, from curved Arabian daggers to field-
pieces captured from the Italians at Adua.
Bandoleers were slung over their togas; shm
scimitars curved behind them; and the horsemen
bore long lances which they could fling with
deadly precision. They followed no roads, nor
observed strict rules of marching, each ras lead
ing his force by whatever way suited him best,
whether along a ridge of hills or following the
meanderings of a convenient valley. All that
was necessary was to keep in touch with the
Negus, and to maintain as well as possible their
roughly assigned positions relative to the centre.
At night the Negus retired to his unpreten
tious tent of green canvas, and to this head
quarters came the great war chiefs or their
couriers to take orders or submit reports. In
the day time the Negus led the van of the army,
[91]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
with Dedjatch Tadela in advance. At the end of
the left wing marched Bas Omar, follower of the
prophet, advancing with blood in his eye, and
"Allah ilallahi" upon his scornful lips. Closer
in on the same flank came Bas Gebri-Gzaibyar,
who brought with him mules and mountain
guns; while ranging far on the right were the
warriors of Bas Gebri-Christos. And this last
was a curious circumstance.
At one time Bas Gebri-Christos had been son-
in-law of the Negus himself, who bestowed upon
him rich lands and large favours. But Gebri-
Christos, wearying of his princess bride after
several years, in the easy manner of the Abys
sinians in such matters sent her back to her
father's thatched palace. Infuriated, the Negus
stripped his vassal of all he had bestowed upon
him. Beyond this he did nothing, for Gebri-
Christos was within his right, and moreover he
was a warrior of distinction. So nothing worse
befell him then to suffer the confiscation of the
chattels his wife had brought, and to know that
he lived under the hatred of the stern Negus.
Now this account may be false, for in this crisis
he was chosen by the Negus to command the
right flank and to carry it alone, which he did,
[92]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
beating forward hke the black wing of a pounc
ing raven; but in view of later events I am in
clined to believe it. Anyway, so ran the gossip
of the market place.
Mikael's rage was cold and calculating.
Though advancing with the rapidity of Asiatic
horse, his army, nevertheless, was in firm control,
and he left no necessary diplomatic precaution
neglected. Chief of these was to hold the con
fidence of his Christian followers, and to wean
from the Shoans the support of the Church, he
himself having become a Christian only at the
time of his marriage to Menelik's younger
daughter. To accomplish his end, he selected an
ecclesiastic of Coptic descent who was head of
the Church in the kingdom of Wallo, and him
he named Abouna Petrus, head of the Christian
Church in all Ethiopea, and subject only to the
synod at Alexandria. Confident, then, of the
spiritual satisfaction of his followers, — the Mus
sulmans embracing death in the name of Allah,
and the Christians at their side confident of sal
vation through martyrdom, — he advanced fear
lessly. At Ankober, Bas Omar, the Mussulman, met
the first of the Shoan forces, six thousand strong,
[93]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
who had pushed forward under the leadership
of the brave Lul Seged in an effort to check
the invasion. Bas Omar's fanatics overwhelmed
them; Lul Seged found his eternal couch upon
the field of battle ; and the few who remained of
his force were sent flying southward towards
Addis-Abeba to pant out news of the disaster
within the hnes of the gathering Shoans.
Following swiftly, but losing time in idle skir
mishes here and there, — for each man provided
his own commissariat and was obliged to forage
by the way, — the army of the Negus at last
came to Silti, a small village two days' march
northeast of Addis-Abeba, and here halted; for
the Shoans had formed a camp at Koromasch,
a short distance beyond, and were apparently
ready for battle.
The Negus Mikael was anxious to begin the
conflict at once; but he was forced to hesitate.
His followers had done hard marching and
fierce fighting. Moreover their impetuosity was
greater than their endurance, and there was
danger of overthrowing themselves in too hasty
an attempt to annihilate the enemy. Accord
ingly the old green tent was pitched on an
eminence, a council of rases was called, and the
[94]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
soldiers bivouacked for night. Mikael knew
that he was opposed by Fitaorari Apte Guir-
gious, Mmister of War and Governor of the
Equatorial Provinces, and he did not make the
mistake of underestimating the courage, shrewd
ness, and determination of his old fellow-in-arms.
It is true that the Fitaorari was second in com
mand to Bas Taffari; but at this time the young
Regent's name bore more weight than his
scimitar, and he willingly accepted the counsel
of his older chieftain.
The Negus, therefore, took time to consider;
but before his rases had yet expressed their
ideas, — while, indeed, they were still exchanging
the fulsome compliments and many little cour
tesies that are the custom of chivalrous and war
like people, and were pledging each other in
tedj, the golden wine of their native hills, made
of honey and herbs, — a hubbub arose at the en
trance to the tent, and into the presence of
the council under escort of a guard of spears-
men came a messenger from Fitaorari Apte
Guirgious. In the name of Menelik, the leader of the
Shoans offered peace. He pointed out that the
war was internecine; that nothing could be
[ 95 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
gained by it but further strife ; and that so long
as it continued they opened their country to
foreign aggression. If the Negus were willing,
he suggested that he submit his terms of peace
to be considered by the throne.
This offer had a triple effect on the Negus.
Coming from the Minister of War, it astonished
him; secondly, it flattered him for the awe he
had so quickly inspired; and lastly, it made him
hesitate. If it were possible for him to obtain
his object without a pitched battle, so much the
better for him; for his army would then be in
tact and greatly strengthened by the surrender
ing Shoans. Nevertheless, first dismissing his
council, he sent back word that he would only
consider the unconditional surrender of the
Shoans. This, he felt, would be conclusive.
Great was his astonishment in the morning,
therefore, when a messenger returned bearing a
weak reply from the Fitaorari.
"It is beyond my power," the Fitaorari
pleaded, "to surrender my forces without re
sistance, or at least until I secure the consent of
the Empress. It will be impossible to obtain
this consent until a swift courier can bear your
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SOUTH OF SUEZ
terms to Addis-Abeba, and the proposition is
there discussed."
The Negus immediately came to the con
clusion that the Fitaorari, lacking in strong rases
to spur him on, had lost heart. He felt now that
the Shoans feared him and were anxious to avoid
battle. Moreover there was excellent reason to
believe that the Empress, dragged unwillingly
from her retirement, might consent to the Negus
himself, her brother-in-law, being elevated to
the throne. So he agreed that word should be
sent to Addis-Abeba; and he immediately con
solidated his forces in the same relative positions
that they held in marching, placing the field
pieces on either side of his own encampment,
and extending his front.
Now the Fitaorari Apte Guirgious's offer of
peace was merely a ruse to gain time; for the
Shoan forces were slow in assembling.
When there is no necessity for haste, Shoa
alone can mobilise a vast number of armed and
courageous warriors whose equal is not to be
found elsewhere in Africa. But these men were
scattered at the very moment when they were
most urgently required, for the danger was im-
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minent. The word went through the land,
therefore, for the rases to assemble in all haste
with what men were at hand, leaving word for
the tarriers to follow after. And so the chief
tains rode into the capital with their small
bands, and out again northward. Haile Guir-
gious, Governor of Damot and God jam, who
ordinarily could assemble a large army, came at
the call with only a thousand warriors, and with
this meagre crew took his post on the right flank.
Other rases entered the field with only a few
hundred men to support them. By means of the
railway several thousands were brought up from
Dire-Daoua. And thus by small, scattered
bands the ranks of the Shoans were filled, until
at last a loosely organised army was got to
gether of about eighty thousand men, with many
mitrailleuses and perhaps fifteen or twenty guns.
The Fitaorari grouped these men under the
greater rases, and placed them hastily in posi
tion as follows:
On the right flank was Haile Guirgious; on
the left flank was Ligaba Bay ana; and the centre
was held with Bas Demissie in advance, Fitaorari
Apte Guirgious in the van, and Ras Taffari, the
youthful regent, in support. [ 98 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
The country was billowy tableland, with gentle
vales through which clear, cold streamlets flowed,
while on the slopes were occasional copses of
juniper and wild fig trees. A few peasants'
tokhuls oozed smoke through the thick thatched
roofs, and sheep and cattle browsed in the long
grass. It was generally level, but forward and
immediately to the left of Dedjatch Tadela's
camp on the side of the invading forces was a hill
which hfted itself above the surrounding mead
ows and dominated both camps. Ignoring
modern ideas of tactics until forced upon them
by necessity, both sides disregarded the impor
tance of this eminence. . . .
After waiting three days for word from
Addis-Abeba, the Negus at last lost patience
and began to doubt the wisdom of his delay.
This doubting of his own judgment enraged him.
Action always conquers diplomacy; and so he
sent word that he would wait no longer. . . .
On this afternoon, or the day before, I had
gone riding with a party from the British Lega
tion — the British Minister and his wife, the Con
sul General and his wife, and the military
attache — to explore an ancient ruin on a high
elevation northeastward of the capital. It was
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SOUTH OF SUEZ
a glorious ride up rocky slopes and across rolling
meadows alight with golden mustard and the
scarlet blossoms of wild sweet peas.
The ruin was the remains of an ancient Chris
tian church carved out of the living rock, pos
sibly by the hands of some of those ancient
mystics who, in days before the Crusades, went
out into the desert places to spend their lives in
pious works and meditation. They believed
their work would endure forever, and truly it
was as old as the hills; yet, though we marked
clearly the transept, the nave, and the chancel,
the roof had fallen in places, the roots of large
trees tore at the crumbling rocks, and a rich
luxuriance of creepers hastened its decay.
Standing on this ruin, on one side below us in
a glorious vista swept the vale of Shoa, radiant
in the light of the sinking sun. But the Major
and the young Consul General urged me to
look behind, and there in the distance they
pointed out the slope near Silti, where the
Negus, hke a hawk, was poised waiting for the
right moment to throw himself upon the Shoans ;
while down in the intervening valleys we saw
small encampments, and tardy horsemen travel
ling northward to lift a lance for the cause. It
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SOUTH OF SUEZ
struck me then what a strange tableau was here.
Christians we were, of the modern age; yet
we stood upon the ruins of a Christian church
built before the dark ages and looked down upon
Christian warriors going to war against the
forces of Islam, calling on St. Gabriel and St.
George, exactly as did their co-religionists of
medieval times — three great ages linked to
gether. And to one side, with red and white
pennons fluttering from the tips of their lances,
stood two turbaned Sikhs with the reins of the
horses upon their arms, imperturbable as the
East that brought them forth, saying nothing,
merely looking on.
We rode back before the shadows fell. . . .
At about three o'clock in the morning the in
vaders began to stir. Hot is the blood that
lusts for battle two hours before the dawn. Yet
before the naked sun rose from its eastern couch
of sand, large bodies of warriors were moving
through the dew-drenched meadows of the up
lands. At first a silence hung over the cold,
misty country, broken only by the gasping
laughter of ah hyena, and then by the dull
rumble of the war-drums whose deep notes
pulsed through the night like throbbing blood in
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SOUTH OF SUEZ
the ear. The heart seemed to beat unconsciously
in rhythm with the sound, feeling the same suf
focating thrill that comes at the first echo of
distant cannon. It called for action.
Driven on by the sound, the white companies
drifted through the darkness hke bands of
ghosts, over the rolling meadows, along the
gentle vales, with an occasional clank of arms, a
whispered command sternly given, the starthng
snort of a pony, or the blind rush of some wild
creature surprised in its covert. Then to the
eastward, where Ras Omar was closing in on the
Shoan flank, there came the snap of rifles, the
swish and hammer of hoofs as horses charged in
the night, and the battle was on.
Negus Mikael's plan was simple and de
termined. Both flanks of the Shoans were to
be turned in upon the centre, and at the same
time a frontal attack was to be directed against
the main camps. On the wings it required
several hours' marching to bring the warriors in
contact, but at the centre less than half a mile
separated the contending forces, so that all
seemed to come in contact at once.
The guns went into action immediately, spit
ting and striking blindly in the darkness; while
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SOUTH OF SUEZ
the mitrailleuses sputtered as uselessly from
their uncertain posts. This was a vain show,
and a form of warfare hateful to the warriors.
With shouts and cries they rushed forward, seek
ing to come to grips with their opponents.
Ras Omar's impetuous followers, striking the
scattered forces of the Betodded Haile Guirgious
with a sweeping rush, seemed to carry all be
fore him, forcing the old chieftain back upon his
centre, fighting desperately to prevent a com
plete turning movement.
While Ras Omar thus seemed to be carrying
all before him, Dedjatch Tadela, followed by all
the forces of the Negus Mikael, advanced in a
straight frontal attack, and threw himself with
great ferocity upon the very camp of Ras
Demissie, in the Shoan centre, and by the sheer
shock of the encounter overthrew the Shoans
and sent them reeling back upon the camp of
Fitaorari Apte Guirgious. Continuing on with
unabated impetuosity, he actually penetrated the
Fitaorari's encampment and came in contact
with the last reserve under Ras Taffari. The
fighting in this advance was terrific, as Dedjatch
Tadela in his advance must have had under him
about thirty thousand men, with whom he hoped
[103]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
to annihilate over fifty thousand Shoans, de
pending for success not on any principle of
tactics but upon the sheer ferocity of his men.
His attack was a whirlwind of steel and flying
lead; but he stirred up a second whirlwind to
contend with him.
The Shoans are not brawlers and swash
bucklers. They are gentle in manner, soft-
spoken, affectionate, and rather inclined towards
peaceful settlements, unless they become excited.
The sight of blood, the sound of clashing arms,
the shock of an insult, will arouse them to swift,
insensate fury. When blood or honour cries for
vengeance, they shriek, they howl, they leap in
the air, they froth at the mouth, and rush
furiously upon their adversaries determined to
tear them to pieces. Imagine, then, a hundred
and thirty thousand of such men, aroused to the
point of desperation, flinging themselves upon
each other with lances, scimitars, daggers. . . .
The Fitaorari Apte Guirgious himself, com
mander-in-chief, unable to remain inactive with
the clash of battle about him, though old and
lame, leaped from his horse, flung his rifle away,
and rushed into the torrent of the enemy with
drawn sword. Bas Demissie, entangled in a
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SOUTH OF SUEZ
struggling, panting mass of warriors, was
knocked from his saddle by a blow from a stick
in the hands of a squire; twice was he captured
and recaptured. Horsemen charged among
men on foot or clashed furiously with one an
other; foot soldiers were involved in struggling
mobs, where rifles exploded like crackers, lances
swished through the air, scimitars thudded
against raw-hide shields, half -naked men rolled
over and over in the thick, sweet-smelling
meadow grass, stabbing at each other, choking
for breath, mad to kill.
While Bas Omar was turning the Shoans'
right, and Dedjatch Tadela smashing their cen
tre, Ras Gebri-Gzaibyer, well equipped with mi
trailleuses, hit upon the idea of securing the hill,
emplacing himself there, and dominating the
field. Simultaneously Ras Demissie, of the
Shoan force, despite the confusion in which he
found himself, having already twice narrowly
escaped destruction, was struck by the same pos
sibility, and immediately detached men to take
the hill. It was taken and retaken three times
before the sun rose, and the dead about it were
piled in heaps.
You must know that the sun rises early, so
[105]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
that darkness quickly gave way before the golden
flood that poured from the east. The pure,
cool dew which was distilling from the fragrant
mountain air when the sun went down, now at
its rising was tinged with blood. In the
light of day the struggle became fiercer. Each
side knew that defeat meant annihilation.
Lungs burned, muscles ached; but neither
wounds nor fatigue could force them to stop.
Horses, flecked in bloody froth, heaved them
selves up the gentle slopes, whistling through
their parched throats, and lunged down again
into the nearest turmoil. Men fought in isolated
groups. And all the while the drums roared
and throbbed. . . .
On the eminence where his camp was pitched,
the Negus Mikael, seated on his fretting horse,
"Roll-Them-Up," with a tiny reserve of six or
seven hundred men about him, gazed out across
the field towards Koromasch. The furrow on
his brow was smoothing out ; his large, intelligent
eyes flashed; his mobile lips parted so that his
teeth glistened in his beard. He saw himself al
ready upon the throne of Menelik. The battle
was his.
Bas Omar had successfully turned the enemy's
[ 106 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
right flank in upon its centre; and the centre
was being thrust determinedly back in confusion
before the fierce attack of Dedjatch Tadela.
The decision, then, rested with the swords of Ras
Gebri-Christos, whose object it was to turn the
left flank guarded by Ligaba Bayana. . . . And
here there is confusion.
Ras Gebri-Christos advanced as rapidly as
Bas Omar on the left wing and forced action
upon Ligaba Bayana, who opposed him with
eight thousand men; but whether there was a
struggle in which the attacker was completely
repulsed, or he dehberately yielded to Ligaba
Bayana, joined forces with him, and turned back
upon his own leader, is not clear. In either
event, however, the result would have been the
same; for while this point of the battle was still
in uncertainty, there suddenly appeared from the
west, cutting in behind Bas Gebri-Christos, six
thousand mounted men under Bas Kassa.
Suddenly, then, while his warriors were actu
ally sweeping everything before them, and vic
tory seemed certain, the attention of the Negus
Mikael was turned westward.
From this quarter a host of horsemen was
rushing upon him. [107]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Uncertain, curious, not yet doubting that
Gebri-Christos had been anything but victorious,
the Negus and his bodyguard moved slowly for
ward to meet this advance. They strained their
eyes to identify the leader. Some one recog
nised Bas Gebri-Christos. Immediately the
Negus believed that his heutenant had been de
feated, and was hard pressed.
With a cry to his followers, he charged
straight to the support of the overwhelmed
Christos, his few hundred warriors pressing
valiantly behind him, shouting encouragement
and loosening their arms. They had not gone
far, however, when a word was shrieked in the
uproar that suddenly stilled the shouts and
brought the flying horses to a plunging halt.
"Treachery! Treachery!"
The Negus was stunned. He looked about
him as though he had suddenly been surrounded
by assassins. Some of his men were galloping
furiously away to the northward. One of his
rases pressed close to him and urged him to fly.
"The north is open. You are safe. There is
no horse in Shoa that can pass the dust of 'Roll-
Them-Up.' " Others cried out, "We are lost.
Everything is lost. Fly! Fly!" The horses
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SOUTH OF SUEZ
plunged and shied. The rases pressed in upon
their king, exhorting him to save himself. A
few slipped away and fled towards Ankober.
Gradually it dawned upon the Negus that all •
in truth was lost, and that before him, advanc
ing rapidly at the head of hostile horsemen, was
the man his guard called traitor, his errant son-
in-law. A shadow settled upon his countenance,
his brows drew down ominously, his eyes gleamed
with a cruel concentration, and he fixed his gaze
on Christos. At that moment he must have
tasted the dregs of bitterness. He had fought
to redeem the honour of a son whom a nation had
scorned, and now at the moment of victory he
was about to be crushed by the man who had
scorned his daughter.
Suddenly, without shifting his gaze, he urged
"Roll-Them-Up" forward. The good horse
leaped hke a startled kudu, and rushed straight
upon the advancing horsemen. The Negus fired
three shots at Christos, wounding him. Then he
was seized and overthrown; yet heedless of any
one else, in a cold frenzy, the king still struggled
desperately to get near enough to Christos to
plunge a knife into him. . . .
This ended the battle. [109]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Dedjatch Tadela and Bas Gebri-Gzaibyer,
having attacked without supports, were hope
lessly surrounded. Only Bas Omar, the Mussul
man, left the field in safety, his untiring warriors
streaking away to the northward, slashing back
at the heavy pursuit of the weary horsemen from
the west.
The struggle had lasted until almost noon;
and the actual dead upon the field certainly
numbered over fourteen thousand.
The thunder of the war-drums died away.
The tumult was stilled. Over the field went
warriors, plucking trophies from the slain; and
after them the camp followers and the neigh
bouring peasants to strip the dead and pillage
among the wounded. The victory was com
plete. . . .
Already in every copse the ravens croaked,
and high in the clear blue heavens black dots
showed the vultures were coming.
Peace settled over the country.

[110]

The Victorious Sh6an Army Marching About Fifty Thousand Strong Before the Empress Zeoditou After
Destroying Ras Mikael's Invading Army a Few Days Previously Beyond the Hills.

The Franco-Ethiopian Railway, the Principal Outlet of Abyssinia, and the Only Practical Means of Con
quering the Desert Girt Empire.

III. Triumph of Zeoditou, Daughter of
Menelik
A HAZE seems to spread itself over all my
actions and the impressions I formed of
the swiftly moving events of that month, a haze
similar to that which lends mystic enchantment
to a medieval romance. Exact details are dis
solved in a general romantic impression. I re
call in a peculiar jumble the perfume of flowers,
a cool strong wind sighing through cypress-like
eucalyptus trees, knightly warriors riding away
at dawn down dim rutted lanes with squires and
hostlers at the heels of their horses, and women
at the smoky doors of thatched huts crying lov
ing farewells and calhng down on them the bless
ings of God and the intercession of the Virgin.
I remember the sound of galloping horses at
night, a leper's bell tinkling in the market place,
a dark ford where robbers lay in ambush, a ride
against time in the dusk of evening on a foam
ing black horse with a bearded cavalryman at
my shoulder with pennoned lance at rest, a
[111]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
gibbet at the cross-roads, and the rasping of
malefactors' bodies swung by the moaning
breezes of night against the bark of road-side
trees. But above all there is a vivid memory of
a brilliant field of honour, where conquering
warriors careered on richly caparisoned horses
before the silken tent of their empress, and en
chained prisoners made obeisance to the valiant
Might that had overthrown them. . . .
Lounging one evening within the walls of my
host's compound, carrying on a desultory con
versation with a Greek hunter in a language
that was mongrel, we waited with unconscious
expectancy for some new event. The soft
silence of eventide Avas about us. Ravens
croaked malignantly under the garden wall, and
the ruminating camels grumbled in reply. All
at once we heard a rifle shot. Instantly a fusil
lade broke out from the direction of the royal
Guebi. The sound ran like fire over the wooded
hills of the capital; rifles exploded at our very
gate; cannon hammered at the sky. In another
moment we were in the midst of bedlam.
An Arab ran to the gate and barred it. The
occupants of the compound stared at each other
dazed, anxious. All armed themselves with
[112]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
rifles, pikes, and swords. Had the Negus come?
If so, we were lost.
The Greek tried to explain to me; but our
languages were too mixed for sudden speech.
So then he swung up on his little horse. Order
ing the gate to be opened, he turned to me,
grinned, said "Chin-chin," and rode away. I
knew then that good news had come from
Silti, and as he turned away in the direction
of the Guebi, I made off on foot to the market
place. The brown naked expanse of the market place
was filled with flying figures. Reckless riders
galloped at breakneck pace over rough ground,
leaping the furrows and ditches as though they
were nothing but ruts, waving their rifles about
their heads, and firing at random. Unmounted
soldiers squatted comfortably on their haunches,
and pumped their rifles at an empty sky.
Women thrust their heads out of doors and
cried in tremulous voices for news. Panting
clusters of squires and attendants chased like
mad after the flying masters they were sup
posed to escort. Curs came leaping joyously
out of every alleyway, yelping without restraint,
and then went racing silently back with lumps of
[ H3 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
lead whipping the dust about them; for such a
thing as a blank cartridge is unknown in
Ethiopea. Squat, bow-legged slaves, grinning
delightedly one moment, looking ghastly serious
the next, blundered about on tardy errands, or
took hasty shelter in the nearest huts. I passed
a woman who was waihng over her son who had
just been hit; and indeed it is a wonder more of
us were not down, for the pellets were slapping
freely in the dust about us. Many, of course,
were wounded; but the piper was not over-paid.
The last echo of the cannon rolled against the
hills ; and then in rapid diminuendo the rifle shots
died away, until silence again fell over the city;
and darkness seemed to sink softly over the
happy villages. Though I strained my ears
there was no sound to arouse a second thought,
save the tinkling bell of the Faceless One at the
cross-roads. Surprised at the sudden cessation of the shoot
ing, which is as much an expression of an Abys-
sinian's joy as is the song of the Swahili, I
wandered further. All human life seemed to
have been sucked into the thatched dwellings,
where alone sounds of subdued revelry could be
heard. Then I found there were guards sta-
[114]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
tioned along all the main roads, dusty, weary
guards, but grim; and it might have been a
lonely night for me had I not met the Greek
hunter returning; and so we managed to get
through. He told me, now that we could frame our
words at leisure, that Dedjatch Baltcha, the
eunuch, had taken the capital in hand. This, I
knew, meant order; for Baltcha is one of the
sternest figures I have ever encountered. He is
so strangely unlike the general conception of a
eunuch that I should certainly believe him to be
false, — hke Li, the wily paramour of the Em
press of China, — but no breath of scandal rests
against his fame. Austere, cold, passionless in
his heart's desires, nevertheless he moves with
swift and deadly precision, adhering strictly to
the course of right as he understands right. Be
lieving in God with the intimacy of a fanatic,
and fearing Him above all things, he has no
timidity for all the airy bluster of puny man.
Lidj Yassou, the deposed Prince, enraged
once by Baltcha's criticism, threatened to take
from him his titles, his power, his fortune.
"And so," concluded the surly youth, "beware.
Do not forget I am your monarch."
[ H5 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Baltcha replied scornfully:
"And what of that? Do you think I am a
fawning courtier, fearing to lose the paltry
chattels that are now called mine? I have had
too much of life to value any part of it beyond
its worth, and its worth is nothing. So far
from trembling at your threat, I gladly would
renounce all that I have, if I might only go
back to my monastery to spend my remaining
years in meditation. This trumpery vanishes.
Remember, boy, all that is worth living for is
to grow more intimate with God."
And now when the weak-minded Prince was
mumbling with hopeless misery in some desert
retreat, the eunuch sat within the palace walls
and planned a triumph for his successor; no
simple review, or reception of chieftains, but a
parade upon a field of honour such as bards
would sing of in the rustic tokhuls, and return
ing warriors would glorify in the village squares.
This man's every act arouses my admiration, but
his genius for organisation, the rich poetry of
his imagination, the despatch with which he
worked are beyond my praise. He handled men
and warriors and Princes in tens and hundreds
and thousands as though they were tinselled
[116]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
puppets upon a paper stage. For him the glory
of the achievement meant nothing ; but he knew
that royalty — and particularly the royalty of a
parvenu — must shine resplendent to dazzle each
subject's eyes.
Upon the fourth day after the valiant Negus
threw himself away in a bhnd effort to avenge
himself upon a traitor, and his invincible army
had been crumpled by the forces of Shoa, he
was marched on foot and in chains to the
pavilion of the new Empress and forced to
humble himself in the presence of fifty thou
sand Shoan warriors and a multitude of spec
tators. Early in the morning my horse was ready for
me, and with my two French friends I rode
through the villages that lie from the capital out
to eastward where a clear greensward plain,
a hollow in the palm of the hills, had been pre
pared to stage the triumph. As we made our
way along, we found the broad highways and
narrow lanes thronged with the populace going
forth to view the spectacle. Soldiers, chieftains,
and great rases, on foot, on mule, or cantering
on arch-necked steeds, some with a solitary fol
lower or two, hke the bearded cross-bowmen of
[117]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
yore, some with well armed vassals, some with
companies of cavalrymen on curveting horses
with drummers and trumpeters trotting behind
on mules. Ecclesiastics, with flowing white
beards spreading over their chests and coloured
parasols protecting their heads from too ardent
a celestial benediction, tripped by on donkeys;
and the large mass of the people footed it in
the dust, or took position on the high banks by
the roadside to watch the colourful stream of
humanity pour by.
Two things were noticeable. There were no
pedlars with sweetmeats and bottled drinks;
and it may be that the far-sighted Baltcha had
ruled against them. Also, in all the throng there
was no boisterousness. On the contrary the
greetings were soft and gentle; and none jostled
his neighbour unduly. For this there was a
reason, as D'Artagnan might have told. You
do not jostle, unthinkingly, a musketeer armed
cap-a-pie. This I had already learned when
once, beyond the market place, my frettish horse
had almost got beyond control.
Turning into a short-cut, which we had used
before, we left the flowing crowd behind us and
reached the vast meadow in good time for a
[118]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
jump or two and a canter through the fragrant
grass. The landscape alone was such as hfts
the willing heart with unreasoned jubilation.
Gentle hills patched with eucalyptus and juniper
encompassed the plain, except where they opened
to view the billowy vale of Shoa with the Mount
of Monks rising dimly in the distance. The
sky was blue and spacious with downy clouds to
show whence came the cooling breezes; and the
air was fragrant with the subtle perfume of the
uplands, for the level of the plain itself was al
most eight thousand feet above the sea. On all
sides trees pressed in upon the meadow.
At the northern end of the plain, well in the
open, a pavilion had been erected for the
temporary court of the Empress Zeoditou and
the Regent, Bas Taffari. Adjoining and form
ing part of the pavilion was an open extension
for the reception of the Foreign Ministers. The
pavilions were of brightly coloured silk, and
under foot were spread rich Arab and Persian
rugs, such as no Oriental would tread upon in
shppered foot. The fronts of both pavilions
were opened to look upon the broad sweep of
the meadow. This meadow was over half a mile
in length, oval, and around it ran a simple pal-
[119]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
ing such as marks the inner edge of a race
course. As we arrived, some lesser chiefs of the Em
press's body-guard were taking places within the
pavilion of the Foreign Ministers, and these
with the Ministers themselves and their attaches
and body-guards, all in full dress uniforms, and
the members of their households, made in itself
a spectacle of uncommon brilliancy. I know of
few other places in the world where such a
scene could now be enacted, — Peking, I doubt;
Teheran, perhaps, — for here in apparent amity
were the plenipotentiaries of Russia, Austria,
Italy, France, Germany, Turkey and Great
Britain, with mounted guards from Eritrea,
Somaliland and the Punjaub. These be
whiskered Punjaubis, with linked mail upon
their shoulders, block-like turbans adding to
their lofty stature, and fluttering pennons on
their lances to give point to their presence, were
as solemnly at home as their brothers on the
parade grounds of Delhi. They were familiar
figures to me, and only as such did they catch
my eye; for my attention, beyond the natural
courtesies, was almost wholly taken up by the
arriving rases. [120]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
On their feudal domains most of these men
were simple warriors at peace, or even plain
herdsmen, whose garments were of dirtied
cotton and whose heads were crowned with bat
tered felt hats. They had no high-sounding
titles; but "Master of the Piebald Pony" or
"Father of Swift-as-the-Wind" they were called,
justly sharing fame with their mounts. Their
dignity was in the steadiness of their eyes, their
honour in the blood that beat in their hearts, their
pride in their country, their glory in their God.
The standards by which they were judged were
tested at every phase of the moon; and no man
among them had reason to doubt himself in his
own heart. So they wore their robes of cere
mony with simple dignity and courtly grace, as
much at ease in the garments of velvet and cloth-
of-gold as though seated within their tokhuls
with homespun blankets across their shoulders.
So they appeared. But beneath the calm of
their brown, weathered faces no doubt there were
depths stirred by profoundest emotions. This
was the most glorious event of their lives. No
courtier of a Louis ever felt greater pride in
royalty than they in the Empress they had just
created. And as I watched, I perceived that
[121]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
they were not stoic to their environment. They
edged for place; they eagerly sought the oppor
tunity for a word or two with greater chieftains
who could approach the throne ; slaves and pages
wriggled a way through to whisper messages be
hind their ear, and were sent rushing away on
further errands; their composure was often
broken by the sight of old friends, and effusive
greetings were exchanged in courtly style.
Clutching the hilts of their jewelled scimitars
they bowed low; they seized each other's hands;
they embraced. In fact all about me stirred
those numberless httle courtesies and harmless
whispered intrigues which lend to the imperial
sham an air of substance and reality.
In the meantime the plain began to blaze with
colour like a field of flowers bursting with bloom,
with petals scattered willy-nilly. First came the
high priests in resplendent robes, with gorgeous
umbrellas over their heads, trotting along on
sleek ecclesiastical mules, recalling the days
when the Pope was in Tours, and took their
position opposite the Empress's pavilion, leaving
a space a hundred yards in width, so that the
review might pass between. Their retainers
[122]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
lined the paling on either side of their masters,
and though they were of no particular rank, the
thick sheepskins they wore upon their shoulders,
dyed in violent colours, irresistibly suggested a
row of monstrous chrysanthemums. No sooner
were the priests settled than a murmur arose
about me, eyes were turned to the westward,
and there, issuing from an opening in the woods,
came the Empress and her followers. There
was no cheering, no applause; everybody was
silent with astonishment.
Covered with a plain black silk cloak, with
neck and face muffled in snowy hnen, so that only
her eyes showed, and upon her head a broad-
brimmed felt hat, she seemed to have hit by in
stinct upon the nobility of simplicity. Close
about her were several ladies-in-waiting, simi
larly dressed, and all mounted on mules. But
surrounding her, and spreading far on either
side, came such a multitude as I have rarely
seen — a torrent of sandalled, white-clad hu
manity, mostly soldiers, armed with shields,
rifles, bandoleers, and scimitars. And this wave
bore her down upon us, deposited her at the
entrance to her pavihon, and then broke and
[ 123 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
swirled in independent eddies about the course
until driven back into position by horsemen
charging boldly into the press.
At the entrance to the pavihon the great rases
came forward, such as were not at the head of
their warriors — and with deep bows greeted the
Empress and escorted her to her dais within.
There was a momentary confusion in our
pavilion, the members of the body-guard press
ing forward for a better view of Menehk's
daughter, while the last eddies of the mob
swirled along the edge of the tent. At this mo
ment I heard a subdued, startled murmur be
hind me :
"Baltcha! Baltcha!"
Turning my head, I saw the philosophic hawk
stalking down the line of rases, striking coldly,
imperiously, with his long staff at the heads and
shoulders of those who did not promptly fall
back to make way for him. I held my breath,
expecting them to seize upon him and rend him;
but they made way before the black-clad figure,
wincing and pushing forward their shoulders as
he struck at them. In their eyes was the fear
and pride of a dog struck lightly by its master.
Bitodded Haile Guirgious, Minister of the In-
[124]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
terior, then came to tell us the Empress was
ready to receive us. I had already met the
Bitodded, a noble figure of manhood, large, firm
in build, with the countenance of a great leader.
His features were small and clean-cut; a short,
crisp beard gave dignity to his countenance;
and his far-seeing eye, set beneath a lofty
brow, indicated a deep intelhgence and great
reserve. "He is anxious," my companion breathed in
my ear. "He may yet hang. They have not
forgot that he was the favourite of the Prince."
"He keeps his feet," I observed, as I watched
him make his way to the side of the Empress's
dais. "Ah, yes. He knows where to land. The
trouble is he is too bright."
I thought with amusement of Cesar's, "Have
men about me who are fat;" for at the Empress's
shoulder was the dark ascetic countenance of
Baltcha, pinched, thin-lipped, with high arched
nose and shadowy eyes, like the mummy of
Rameses. We paid our respects to the Empress, who re
mained veiled to her eyes; but this ghmpse
seemed sufficient to betray a character that was
[125]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
gentle, sympathetic, unspoiled either by weak
vanity or vain cynicism. No sooner had this
preliminary reception ended than an uproar
burst forth in the space before the pavilion, and
there, cavorting upon the green, was the court
fool. He came as a warrior, burlesquing with
timely ridicule the boasted achievements of the
fighting men.
In his head-dress was a bunch of grass to
mock the gallants who wear a sprig of green
to show they have killed their man ; and around
his girdle were the mantles of his slain. Fling
ing himself upon the ground, he crawled on his
stomach to within thirty feet of the throne, aim
ing his rifle, and shouting "bang" to punctuate
his tale. Leaping to his feet, he whirled a
scimitar about his head, charged imaginary
enemies, and shrieked in panting accents how he
had saved the throne by killing ten thousand men
at Silti. One of the court attendants, dressed
simply in white, and armed with nothing
more than a staff, unimpressed by the general
laughter, finally stepped forward, touched him
with the staff, and bade him begone. Scarcely
had he run aside, screaming defiance, than with
a muffled hammer of hoofs the first of the re-
[126]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
turning warriors bore down in a wild stampede
upon the pavihon.
It was a sight to hft the heart, to make one
rise in his stirrups stiffened with sheer thrill.
At the head, on a richly caparisoned horse, whose
coat of gold and silver filigree on blue cloth
swept the grass, came the first ras in rich robes
of gold and purple, with a lion's mane for a cape,
and a head-dress made from the tufts of lions'
tails. On his left arm he bore a. round shield
of brown suede leather overlaid with hammered
gold, while round and round his head his keen
scimitar hissed, as his horse curveted and made
fantasia before the throne. Pressing at his heels
in a wild riot of colour came the screaming
warriors of Shoa, brandishing rifles and lances,
with their ponies plunging and shying amid a
tangle of weapons and cloaks draped from their
necks and saddle cruppers — trophies of war,
taken but five days since from the invaders from
the North. The final act of the ras was to fling
himself from his horse, to rush to the edge of
the pavilion, shouting of his deeds, loudly pro
claiming his undying loyalty, and then to sink
quietly in a solemn genuflection before the
Empress. [ 127 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
She hardly noticed him, for already a second
company was charging up the course, and the
stern attendant in white waved the first ras aside.
Yet that moment was the supreme moment of
his life. He had come fresh from the battle
field, flushed with victory, and in the presence
of all the valiant ones of Shoa, his valour had
been proclaimed.
To us cynics of a soft and cynic land, jaded
with luxury, callous with self-sufficiency, vic
tims of bathos, yet unimpressionable to realities,
such a spectacle is nothing more than a spectacle
— a circus parade, worth so much a head. But
it was infinitely more. The earnestness, the
abandon, the nervous frenzy which seemed to
agitate these warriors as they shouted of their
deeds, then sank in calm obeisance before their
monarch, seemed to me to hold all the signifi
cance of the salute of Napoleon's cuirassiers- at
Austerlitz. As I watched the companies charge
by, with clashing arms, and songs, and frantic
shouts, I remembered this: that in all Africa
there remains to-day but this one independent
nation, that that nation was strong and inde
pendent and Christian centuries before the Cru
saders laid siege to Acre, and that if Ethiopea
[128]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
had ever fallen before Islam, even as Nubia fell,
Great Britain probably would not hold Egypt
to-day, and Africa might still be dark from
Omdurman to Delagoa Bay.
Fifty thousand men or more must have passed
before us. That number comes within my
reckoning. And all these men were warriors of
the first class, though they represented but a
small proportion of the nation's resources; and
every one had fought hand to hand in battle.
Full in the van came Fitaorari Apte Guir
gious, the greatest of the rases. A quarter of
an hour before his contingent reached the pa
vihon, his war drums heralded his approach.
There were more than thirty of them, with the
drummers mounted on mules, and it was hard
to say when the vibrations first reached the ear,
for they grew from a whisper to a pulsing roar
without any apparent transition. The sound
stirred the blood, and set the nerves to tingling
until it was almost impossible not to leap in the
air and shout. Before the drummers strode
other musicians who blew on long horns that
blared like Manchu trumpets. The uproar
seemed to fill the air with the high tension that
comes before a tempest; and to accentuate this
[129]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
impression there suddenly appeared a singing
woman, shouting random snatches of warlike
songs and soldiers' ballads.
The Fitaorari conducted himself with re
straint. The solemn dignity of a very great
chief rested upon him, and he advanced slowly,
his excited horse stepping daintily and chafing
at the bit, as he faced the pavihon. Instead of
the popular lion's mane, the Minister of War had
over his shoulders a cloak of otter skins, while
rising from the chaplet that bound his head was
a soft ostrich plume, the rare Wallo badge of
royalty. In the momentary silence when the
Fitaorari faced the Empress, suddenly there
came from the multitude a spontaneous burst of
applause; and this was extraordinary, for until
that moment there had been no cheer, nor rifle
shot, nor shout of approbation. It was one of
those strange occasions when the crowd is domi
nated by the spectacle. The warriors required
no acclamation from the mob. Even the
Fitaorari's ovation started in the tent of the
foreign Ministers.
Following the Fitaorari came old Bas Demis
sie, looking, with his broad white beard upon his
chest and green parasol over his head, for all
[130]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
the world like a distinguished prelate. His
robes were as resplendent as an archbishop's,
and instead of indulging in the fantasia of
youths, he merely bowed with solemn gravity.
Yet this was the man who had supported the
right flank, helped to beat off the furious on
slaught of Bas Omar, and after repeated at
tempts carried the central hill.
In strong contrast to this old warrior was
Lies Gesta, straight and young, who had just
succeeded to the honours of his father. Riding
his horse almost into the Empress's pavihon, he
cried out:
"My men are scattered, and the strength of
my father is gone; but as for me, O Daughter
of Menehk, my Empress, I pledge my arm and
my honour to you."
Thus the rases made obeisance, and pledged
their loyalty; but they were merely the leaders
of wave after wave of loyal warriors, warriors
on foot, on mule, on horseback. These masses
of men charged furiously upon the pavihon,
clashing their arms, shouting, screaming, twirl
ing scimitars about their heads, brandishing their
rifles. In the heat of their excitement they
pantomimed the events of the battle, and the
[131]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
heroic deeds they performed. Bearded old war
riors with flashing eyes danced madly before
the assembled court, all consciousness of them
selves lost in a passion of enthusiasm. Younger
men, aspiring to high favour, rushed almost to
the foot of the throne, hoping that the Empress
would be impressed by their prowess. Whole
companies of lesser chiefs charged with a roar
of hoofs to within twenty-five feet of the royal
dais, then brought their mounts back on their
haunches, plunging and shying amid a tangle
of accoutrements and trophies.
Standing before the pavihon were two men
in white robes. These were the guardians of the
steps to the throne. Armed with thin staffs and
nothing more, they checked the wild impetuosity
of warriors and kept the torrent of horsemen
within bounds. Cold and unflinching, they
budged not a hair's breadth in the face of charges
that might well have broken a British square.
On their faces were stern frowns of concentra
tion; and except to cry sharply, "Stop," or "Pass
on," they seldom spoke. Nothing escaped them.
A ras, overestimating his own dignity and seek
ing to join the chieftains assembling within the
[132]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
pavilion, was ordered away by them as per
emptorily as a presumptuous hostler, while some
unpretentious old man would be given a place
of honour. They knew everybody, and under
stood the finest shades of court precedence; yet
there was an ease, a graceful simplicity in their
manner that disarmed any suspicion of arro
gance. Only once did they give way for any
advancing dignitary; and this was when the
Abouna Petrus, the Coptic pontiff elevated by
the Negus Mikael, came before the throne as a
prisoner. Pale, weary, and anxious, his cream-coloured
skin and silky white beard made him con
spicuous among the dusky Abyssinians. He
wore a robe of black, and came on a led mule
to the front of the pavihon, where he dismounted
slowly and heavily and advanced towards the
dais with God only knows what doubts and mis
givings. The multitude strained forward to
witness the reception. He was a great prelate.
Would the throne dare to consider him a traitor?
And, if so, what fate awaited him? But the
Abouna Petrus, lifting his eyes, saw that he
was looked upon graciously by the pious and for-
[133]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
giving Empress; and the prelates came forward
and embraced him, and escorted him to a place
of honour opposite the pavihon.
To me it seemed like a dream, the vision of
an animated tapestry of Bayeaux, showing the
valour of a chivalrous nation sweeping by in
every rich and royal colour, with a background
of Nile-green hills under a blue and downy sky.
At the same time it was not possible to forget
that these were fighting men, fresh from the field
of battle, men whom I might some day en
counter. The trailing trophies told the tale;
but more to the point were the rifles, the mitra
illeuses, and the mountain guns neatly packed
on mule back. The heavy guns were not on
show ; they were parked about the Guebi. More
over, from Bas Kassa's well-organised men —
some of whom had fought as volunteers against
the Turks in Tripoli — to the tangle of Galla
horsemen brandishing their lances, there flamed
a spirit of valour that had never been dulled by
defeat. In the light of their fanaticism, it
struck me how doubly fortunate was the fact of
their Christianity, and the chastening effect of
Kitchener's blow at the Mahdi at Omdurman.
It chanced that Ligaba Bayana stood by me,
[134]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
so I formed more than a passing impression of
his garments. His head-dress was formed of
the tufts from hons' tails, fastened at the base
with rich silver filigree on a silken turban of
green and yellow with streamers flowing down
behind. Upon his shoulders was the customary
hon's mane, caught at the front with a jewelled
clasp. This cloak was attached to a mantle of
golden velvet richly embroidered with silver
thread; while the long undercoat was of scarlet
embroidered in gold. His long, slim, sweeping
scimitar was encased in a scabbard of purple
velvet edged with gold, and gemmed at the hilt.
He bore the weight of this gorgeous apparel with
ease and grace, his sturdy body, his dusky
countenance and stern steady eyes giving ample
dignity to the garish richness of his garments.
It was a strange sight to see his contingent
advancing, bearing aloft religious emblems, the
staff and crucifix, and the banners of St. George
and St. Gabriel; but more impressive still was
the sight of the prisoners. Like the burghers
of Calais, gowned in black, with chains about
their wrists and necks, and bearing stones upon
their shoulders, these illustrious chieftains of
yesterday passed by humbly on foot with bowed
[ 135 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
heads. There were only a few, for beyond the
Mediterranean and the Caucasus prisoners are
an unnecessary nuisance, unless they be worthy
of ransom; though I must affirm that on this
occasion a striking leniency had been shown, the
bulk of the prisoners being sent back to their
homes, unmolested.
Last of all came the Negus himself.
A week before, the timid souls of the capital
who had looked northward into the night at the
shimmering lightning behind Entoto and listened
to the ominous roll of distant thunder, envisioned
the Negus holding his ravening thousands in
leash upon the slopes of Silti before sweep
ing forward into the city. They imagined him
coming with flame and scimitar, amid the thun
der of hoofs, and the shouts of ruthless con
querors. They had trembled at his approach.
. . . And now he was at hand. The pulsing
roar of the Fitaorari 's drums and the tramping
and champing of fretful horses filled the air with
a tumult, but the crowd, fastening its eyes upon
the approaching Negus, fell silent.
The escort spread away before him, and there
in the open space was disclosed the dread Abou
Tekelel, "Father of Roll-Them-Up," the Negus
[ 136 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Mikael. In black, with a band of white about
his head, and chained by the wrist to a lesser
ras of Harrar, he came forward, limping slightly,
to the very edge of the tent. Who knows what
weight of grief, what agony of shame bore down
upon him? He thought of his weak minded and
disgraced son ; of the treacherous Gebri-Christos ;
of his own ruthless and determined effort to dis
rupt his country, the ancient land of his fore
fathers; and he knew that all was lost, that his
long lineage had come to a disgraceful and com
plete end. He who had been king but yester
day was nothing; and his son was less than
nothing. His noble features, grizzled beard,
and the stern, anxious expression of his coun
tenance inspired instant respect and sympathy;
so that many for the moment forgot the suffer
ing he had brought to others. Yet there were
hundreds in that assemblage who would have
dared to speed a bullet or plunge a knife into
his heart were it not for the cold vigilance of
Baltcha. Approaching the throne, he cast a swift, com
prehensive glance from under his frowning eye
brows at the men who supported it — kindred,
brothers in arms, rases who had stood with him
[137]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
at the bedside of Menelik and pledged their
honour to uphold the old Emperor's choice . . .
the wandering Lidj Yassou. Then he sank on
his knee before the Empress, sister of his wife.
A gesture, a nod, a look of compassion from her,
might have meant the salvation of his family.
She averted her eyes. Rising slowly to his
feet, the fallen Negus turned about, glanced
absently here and there, as though he were lost,
and was borne away hke a fallen leaf in the tor
rent of warriors that poured westward. . . .
My companion whispered in my ear :
"It is virtually over. Let us go now while
we have the opportunity. Do not forget that
we are engaged for tiffin!"
It was almost two o'clock. We had been
standing since early morning. But we waited
to meet Bas Taffari, Regent, successor to Lidj
Yassou ; and I marked with pleasure the smiling
alertness of this new ruler of Ethiopea. Slim,
bearded hke a Spaniard, slightly sallow, his
countenance ahght with intelligence and good
will, he augured well for the future of his
country. We made our farewells, swung into saddle,
and threaded our way rapidly through that great
[138]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
jumbled multitude, until we reached an open
lane, when we broke into a gallop. For tiffin
with M. Hallot in his rose-embowered bungalow,
set in a grove of eucalyptus, with a murmuring
stream beside it, is not an event to be lightly
forgotten . . . though Princes fall, and empires
totter. The following night, muffled against the sud
den chill, we mounted our ponies, said farewell
to the httle group in the compound yard, and in
another minute were scampering through the
darkness down the rough rocky declivity that
formed the chief exit from the capital. Our
Arab guide rode a splendid horse, and he pushed
our mounts to the limit over deep-rutted roads,
around thorn-hedged zarebas, past smoky huts,
until we struck the open plain. Then, heedless
of all danger from water-pits, surprises, or
sharp-cut dongas, we went loping away under
the stars. . . .

[139]

Es-Sawahil

THERE is a saying that the most glorious
view of Aden is to be had from the stern
of the vessel which bears you away. I believe
that is substantially correct; though, in truth, I
did not linger over the view at all, save for one
backward glance at the Cyclopean wink of the
baleful beacon on Ras Morbit by which Great
Britain finks up its empire — one last look in the
darkness before our ship swung out for Cape
Guardafui, to skim the bleak Horn of Africa.
With an inexpressible sense of freedom and
content, I wiped the cindery dust from my eyes,
and turned my blossoming thoughts to the white
coral shores and green groves of Mombasa.
The ship was one of the noble ancients of the
Messageries Maritimes, full of character and
barnacled memories.
"On the Company's books," I was told, "it is
valued at about seven francs! You see, it
worked off its original cost twenty years
ago!" . . . [141]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Long, black, and narrow, with but a single
deck, broken by sky-lights, and rakish masts de
signed for canvas, it preserved all the character
istics of those early liners to the Far East upon
which Chan Ok, the pirate of the China Sea,
used to prey. Its sisters have gone down en
meshed in nets of West River junks strung on
hawsers of Manila hemp, while yellow men
swarmed out of the mists, up the careening sides,
and through the square, window-like ports.
This memory may seem distant, yet we know
well enough that a broken propellor-shaft might
promise a similar fate for us upon the point of
the Horn, off our starboard bow.
Here, several months before, a British com
missioner in a gunboat came to inquire into the
loss of a trading vessel. The nearest chief re
ceived him in primitive state, seated in an arm
chair, and leaning on his elbows with a bored
expression. He. denied all knowledge of the
wreck; yet the very chair he sat upon had come
from the captain's cabin !
Our ship was a ship to travel in!
Cows lowed in pens, and sheep and poultry
added to the farm-yard aspect of the quarter
deck. The cook had a kitchen garden in the
[142]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
galley; and geraniums grew in a window-box in
the steward's cuddy.
The captain, a portly and jovial man, paraded
the deck beaming upon us all, gesticulating ex
pansively with his long spy-glass, and entered
heartily into our discussion when expressed in
language he could comprehend. On the night
before our arrival in Mombasa harbour, when
a small British company gathered about him,
mellow and merry, and toasted him with full cups,
roaring into the soft tropical darkness their con
viction that "he was a jolly good fellow," he was
visibly affected. Not understanding the words,
he instinctively felt that they fitted the occasion,
so he took the lead; and waving his glass in
gentle rhythm above his head, with an expression
mingled of melancholy and poetic resignation,
his rubicund face looking for all the world like
the picture of a sanctimonious friar, he picked
up the voices one by one until he brought out in
one pandemonic roar the fact that he was a jolly
good fellow!
Among others, there were quiet missionary
priests, dividing their time between wrinkle-
browed study and merry, mock-serious games of
back-gammon with the children; some sardonic
[143]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
poilus returning, broken, to the colonies ; a mixed
lot of British officers and civilians; and the
families of officials in Madagascar, Seychelles,
and the Mauritius. There were a couple of
pretty Belgian girls aboard, too, and a large
moon accompanied us, rising with glowing coun
tenance in true romantic style. And to cap it,
there was an infatuated young Englishman.
He had no logical right to be infatuated. But
he couldn't help it; and he suffered spasms of
silence when the roguish Belgian maid who had
made roast meat of his heart turned her glisten
ing eyes at others. . . .
There was a following sea, and we swept down
the long coast without startling incident, en
joying the calm procession of sunny days, the
fresh whisper of the sea about our sides, and the
noisome, colourful circus of the sailors and their
wives and mothers and aunts and offspring which
the fo'c's'le held for us.
Every race and colour of Africa swarmed up
forward; but, unlike the lascar-crewed ships of
the British merchant marine, Africa was actu
ally in the ascendancy. Tarbushes of every
height and colour, crowning black, fuzzy heads,
took the place of turbans and white skull caps.
[ 144 ]

Mombasa, the Entrepot for British East Africa, Presents a Mixture of Civilization and Savagery Typify
ing the East Coast.

Itinerant Witch Doctors in the Lake District.

SOUTH OF SUEZ
It seemed almost as though the ship had an ob
ject in collecting human specimens from Mas-
saoua in Itahan Eritrea to Seychelles and Mada
gascar. Slim, handsome Somali types of the
north blended in all degrees with the heavier,
more powerful Bantu stock from the south.
To one whose imagination can swing a bridge
across the gaps that history is so slow in filling
with connected facts, this long and silent coast,
low-lying under a dazzling sun, presents a mass
of scenes romantic and significant stretching far
back into antiquity.
Somaliland, cut into spheres of influence — an
influence that is only gingerly exercised — stretch
ing from the Red Sea almost to Mombasa, in
British East Africa, is divided among France,
Great Britain, and Italy. The small ports are
httle better than open roads, with small fortified
garrison posts as protection against native sur
prise. The Juba river, near the boundary of
Somahland and British East Africa, land of the
Gallas, recently the scene of a massacre of white
settlers characterising the lawless unrest in the
unsubdued savage land back of the Benadir
coast, is the first river to empty into the sea south
of Port Said. A stretch of almost three thou-
[145]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
sand miles of coast without a river ; and the Juba
itself is obstructed by a bar and is navigable only
by small craft ! South of the Juba there is only
one other stream, the Tana, before Mombasa is
reached; but then the moist, rich Equatorial
coast commences, with a goodly number of small
streams and small but well-protected harbours.
The coast from Lamu, at the mouth of the
Tana, southward, including the maritime plain
of British East Africa, German East Africa
(off whose coast lies Zanzibar), and Portuguese
East Africa, is rich and wet and rank with the
luxuriance of tropical verdure. It is a land of
great promise. But inland there is greater
promise still; for the land rises in great ridges
and plateaus clear back to central Africa where
the chain of great lakes, forming the headwaters
of the Nile, the Congo, and the Zambesi, he.
For this country, Mombasa has become the nat
ural entrepot, in competition with Dar-es-Sa-
laam, the German port of entry below Zan
zibar. Mombasa is ancient ; and it has been the scene
of many bloody conflicts between natives and in
vaders, but more particularly between the Arabs
and the Portuguese, who struggled long for its
[ 146 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
possession until the Imams of Muscat finally
gained the ascendancy, and the red Mahometan
banner flew over the great Portuguese citadel
that still looks out upon the Indian Ocean.
A railroad runs from Mombasa to Victoria
Nyanza, and great agricultural centres are grow
ing along this artery ; while at the lake end there
is a port from which steamers make the tour
of the entire inland coast. Uganda, the inland
kingdom, has been touched with its magic and
shows it in every phase of its life. Automobiles
are in more general use in the larger towns of
Uganda than in North China. . . .
Mombasa's present importance lies in its har
bour and its railroad. It is a commercial centre.
Big business is being developed here in a near-
up-to-date manner. Steamships and railroads
combine to give the place an air of bustle.
There is a large club run on a commercial basis ;
several hotels and rooming-houses; a couple of
struggling cinema houses; a boat club, a tennis
club, a golf links; large European stores; and
taxi-cabs. It is an island of coral formation,
with a coat of green through which tiled and
corrugated-iron roofs are thrust. The main
streets are broad and white and glare in the
[ 1*7 1

SOUTH OF SUEZ
humid sunlight; the sea-front bustles with ac
tivity; and the bazaars hum with business.
There is much about it that is beautiful, that
awakens the imagination, that quickens the pulse.
But, essentially, it is a place to pass through!
It is a gate to the great country that spreads
away inland with all the wonder of savage Africa
in its 'arms ; it is a gate to the open sea through
which the weary may escape to fresher lands!
The true romance of the coast is expressed in
Zanzibar. . . .
One evening, shortly after my arrival in Mom
basa, the young infatuated Englishman invited
me to go riding in the moonlight in a motorcar
which he had borrowed for the occasion. I
thought the invitation curious, until he blurted
out the explanation that he was taking the Bel
gian maid, too, and she insisted upon a chaperon.
She said that I would qualify. ... I very tact
fully occupied the front seat with the Goanese
driver, and we sailed about the island over dim,
smooth coral roads over which bent great mango
trees dripping with large, juicy fruit, large as
small melons, juicy as overripe tomatoes! We
ran close to the shore, so that the murmur of the
sea whispered in our ears ; the moon soared over
[148]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
the sea ; the night, soft and balmy, seemed to hold
its breath with an almost overwhelming intensity
of emotion. Suddenly I heard the infatuated
Englishman break the tremulous silence:
"Oh, ma cherie," he whispered tenderly, with
an agony of yearning in his voice. "Ma cherie.
Je t'aime! . . . Je t'aime! . . . Je t'aime! . . .
Je . . . Oh, damn! . . ."
There was the sound of a heavy blow, a sup
pressed scream, and then silence! I scrambled
to my feet and looked back.
A ripe mango had fallen and hit the Infatu
ated One on the back of the neck.
That is Mombasa.

[149]

Zanzibar — The Spicy Isle
AS the Aratoon Apcar — an old acquaintance
of the Bay of Bengal — drifted aimlessly
into the placid roads, I suddenly learned that
my table companion from Mombasa was inter
ested in an attempt to control the sisal crop of
British East Africa. So I missed the first ex
panding view of Zanzibar town; for Zanzibar
was but another port, while sisal is always an ad
venture. Eventually we came on deck for a glimpse of
the town, congested, inchoate, tumbled like a lot
of concrete blocks on the dazzling coral beach
and into the lime-like waters. The Sultan's
palace, as ugly as a Saratoga hotel, obtruded
itself near the centre; while dirty httle alley
ways ran down to the beach, where they emptied
their filth into the sparkling waters among a flot
sam of tatter-sail dhows coasting from village
to village with cargoes of berities, makanda mats,
cloves, coral blocks, and copra. A few broad-
verandaed piles hung over the sands, while right
[151]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
and left a skyline of palms, thrust above a solid
dark green base, indicated the rich, tropical ver
dure that is characteristic of this isle of spice and
romance. To seaward some tiny islands were scattered
hke bits of polished jade upon a tray of ruffled,
stained, sky-blue velvet; while in the offing the
skeleton of a wreck bleaching on its rack of jag
ged coral gave the lie to the music of the waves
whispering and licking about it.
I looked quizzically at the sisal man.
"No fear," he said wearily. "I'm fed up with
niggers. I want to see nothing between here
and Durban. My soul is satisfied with what it's
seen of black Africa. Give me one-quarter per
cent, on my turn-over, and I'll camp on Jermyn
Street for the rest of my hfe. Besides," he
added plaintively, "there's nothing here but spice
and pestilence."
With this ringing in my ears, I went overboard
and sought the shore alone, since no one had
come to meet me.
Aden, from which I had but recently departed,
is a man grown gaunt and rugged in honest
strife; but Zanzibar is a courtesan, whimsical,
gay, sullen, presenting many aspects. Warm,
[ 152 ] '

SOUTH OF SUEZ
rich, beautiful, concealing with dissembhng art
its sinister spots, it lavishes its charms, intoxi
cates with its beauty, smothers with its opulence ;
or suddenly, after a smouldering silence, it rends
itself with rage. The screaming tornado rips
its garments of verdure to tatters, bony-fingered
pestilence goes leering down its dark alleyways,
fever shakes the life out of its victims. And
afterwards, the bright sun sparkles upon the
rain-washed foliage, and the island smiles again
with the innocent radiance of a maiden. . . .
I cleared the Customs, pushing my way
through a polyglot collection of Oriental and
East Coast natives; and, followed by my dazed
Lamu boy shouldering my bag, I plunged
straight into the maze of narrow, slimy, steamy
alleyways that form the thoroughfares of Zan
zibar Town.
The great concrete piles of ancient Arab struc
tures bulked overhead, closing together in places
to form clumsy arches. Fronds of palms, am
bitious shoots, luxuriant creepers, dripping with
moisture, struggled upward to the light. The
air was heavy with the rich, sweet smell of copra
and the spicy tang of cloves. In and out of the
huge carved doors and along the stone-paved
[153]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
alleys, bland Khojas, wet looking Hindus, and
Parsis, carrying umbrellas and hfting their
flimsy trousers or draggling hodrunks from the
shme, made their way from office to office on
strange errands. Hamal carts, pushed and
banged and bullied along by half -naked, sweat
ing, singing, swearing Swahilis, filled the air with
noise 'and confusion. Bicycle bells jangled as
irritable Goanese rounded unsuspected corners ;
birds whistled and shrieked from the house-tops ;
and the muffled rattle of typewriters added a
staccato to the concert. Amid this confusion I
came to a black, richly carved door set in a vast
mouldy wall pierced with iron-barred rifle ports,
and recognised in this my factory and my castle.
A solemn black door-keeper, in white kanza
and red tarbush, arose at my approach and
pushed open the door; and I ascended a long,
dark flight of stairs through an atmosphere sti
fling with the odour of spices. Half way up,
these stairs gave access to my future offices, and
higher still to the spacious living quarters over
hanging the coral beach and looking out upon
the harbour.
It was a busy day. [154 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
From dark, hidden chambers underneath came
the sound of rushing feet, bursts of shrill
laughter, and uproar of tumbhng reed sacks of
cloves and copra, the singsong chant of the tally-
clerks, panting songs; from the beach, shouts of
the boatmen swinging their barges close to the
shore; and from the open bay the distant rattle
of winches as the gluttonous ships gorged them
selves with spices. The office presented a flur
ried aspect of scattered invoices and bills-of -lad
ing, perspiring Parsis, and harried Banian clerks
bending desperately over typewriters; while the
factor, a bland httle Cockney, hopped about with
innocuous energy, playing the role of Director of
the Universe.
I gave him my salaams, told him my intentions,
and left him to revel in his monopoly of the
American spice trade, while I retired to the se
clusion of the spacious veranda overlooking the
"most costly roof in East Africa," and with a
woven palm basket of juicy fruit by my side,
stretched myself blissfully in a long Indian chair,
and smiled at the recollection of parched Aden.
Business did not immediately engross me.
Certain events had transpired to fill me with a
[155]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
passing cynicism. But I delighted in watching
the ambitious little factor outdoing himself for
my edification.
He snatched control of the clove market; he
reeked of copra; he purchased a small fleet of
dhows for the navigation of Victoria Nyanza;
he conjured tonnage out of empty seas ; he even
wheedled space from the sea lords of His Bri
tannic Majesty ; he went so far as to imagine him
self into a fortune based on the sale of beche-de-
mer to the Chinese epicures of New York and
'Frisco; and, at last, bursting with a spasm of
secret patriotism, he disappeared mysteriously
in a small boat for the mainland, where he as
sumed the role of soldier, serving the King in
swamp and jungle against von Lettow's black
men. I ran across him a year later, twittering
over new plans despite his black-water fever.
He was disappointed at the lack of interest
shown in his dramatic departure; but this mo
mentary cloud faded rapidly behind a flash of
new interest.
"How many engagements have you been in?
I've been in nineteen! And forty goes of fever!
They expect me to die, you know!"
I didn't expect him to die. I knew he
[156]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
wouldn't. I hope to hear of him some day cor
nering the oyster crop to foster the walrus in
dustry of Baffin's Bay. . . .
The humorous element in his departure, I
must say, had been*^ aggravated at the time by a
good deal of irritation at the position in which
I was left ; for I was obhged to fill in nearly all
my time with work, worry, and gusts of gid
diness. Ships ceased calling; the "most costly
roof in East Africa" converted itself into a sieve ;
and the httle rains came on in great floods, soak
ing through the roof as though through sugar
and pouring in upon ten thousand bales of pre
cious spices ; while a plague of rats gnawed gap
ing holes in every carefully weighed sack; and
I began to wake to ghostly silences at night, and
hear whispers in the .chamber, and the waves
sneering malevolently on the beach, and the stiff
palm fronds cracking their knuckles, and little
gusts of rain pattering over the corrugated-iron
roofs and spitting in my face.
This was not good for me. One of my prede
cessors had gone through something similar, and
he ended by wincing with physical pain every
time a wave broke on the beach, and at every
step forward imagined that the earth was cav-
[ 157 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
ing in before him. Neuralgia succeeded insom
nia, and insomnia succeeded neuralgia; so even
tually they had to send him touring all over the
world to find a place where he could sleep.
Suddenly I was tickled with a sense of the
ridiculous, and the world grinned back. So I
proceeded to become acquainted with my assis
tants and hamals.
The clove broker was a black-bearded Khoja,
soft in speech, courteous in manner, and very
clever in his dealings. He wore a long black
coat, soft, floppy white linen trousers, sandals,
and an umbrella ; and he took a fatherly interest
in my welfare, dragging me forth to peer in
darksome godowns where pungent cloves were
heaped in hillocks twenty-five feet high. Breath
ing mysterious trade secrets and exuding cloves
from every seam and fold of his voluminous
garments, he drifted into the office like a dark,
brooding cloud touched with bits of sun
shine, and never came unwanted nor stayed too
long. . . .
Ali Bhanji, who scoured the steaming bazaars
in the interests of Manchester looms, was also a
Khoja, but of a different sort. Ali was bump
tious. Ambition boiled within him. Dumpy
[ 158 1

SOUTH OF SUEZ
and Napoleonic (save that he chewed alternately
a stained moustache and betel nut packed in
lime) , he cluttered up and down the stairs twenty
times a day, every time presenting a different
countenance. Frenzied with some petty anxiety,
bursting with pride over some clever stroke, slily
silent over a maturing plan, chuckling at the
latest bon mot of the cloth bazaar, breathing a
forbidden rumour with nervous dread and de-
fight, he filled each passing day with novelty and
inspiration. Claiming me as his property, he
dragged me into the bazaars to smoke sweet
cigarettes with Banians, tell fabulous yarns to
Khojas, sip coffee with Arabs, and pass the time
of day with almost every chance-met Zanzibari.
Beaming benevolently, his pock-marked face
radiating good will, he would say persuasively:
"Ah, here is the house of Jan Hansraj ! Oh,
how many times Jan Hansraj, he say, 'You
come my house !' What you think, bwana?". . .
And in another moment I would find myself
steered into the presence of young Jan Hansraj,
squatting over coffee and exchanging compli
ments and yarns with him.
Now here was romance that most folk would
have passed, unknowing, by; for Jan Hansraj 's
[ 159 1

SOUTH OF SUEZ
father financed Tipoo Tib; and Tipoo Tib was
the great Zanzibar Arab who fought over and
conquered, in his search for ivory (white and
black), all that vast territory which stretches
from the head waters of the Congo and the Nile
to the waters of the Indian Ocean between Cape
Delgado and Mogadishe. This Tipoo Tib was
the chief support and guide of Stanley in his
perambulations about central Africa; and prime
factor in the rescue of Emin Pasha, who was re
luctantly obliged to abdicate from the inner Sou
dan when Gordon was awaiting with cynical
amusement the fate that engulfed him at Khar
toum. . . .
So the tales I heard nonchalantly spoken be
tween weaving wreaths of cigarette smoke and
over cardamom-flavoured coffee, of white ivory
and black, of piratical dhows and sinister court
intrigues, of the seething slave-market around
the corner and the great safaris that gathered at
Bagamoyo on the mainland across the way, and
vanished into the heart of the Black Continent
for twelve and fourteen years at a stretch —
these tales were such as you hear over narghilehs
amid the babble of the bazaar, but can never,
never remember to repeat in prose.
[160]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
I saw much of the tangled, slimjr, tawdry,
teeming bazaar in Ah's company. He was a
good tutor, omitting nothing, as might a finicky
Parsi, anxious not to offend a sahib's nice taste
or corrupt his own. He jibbered, and grunted,
and nodded his head solemnly or grinned mali
ciously, and initiated me in all the mysteries.
Once he even took me to look at his sister, though
I promised to pretend I saw nothing. Down an
alley in the tin bazaar we passed a certain shop.
"There, bwana, look! It is she!"
Squatting on the floor near the door of the
shop, with a nearly naked baby, tubby and tat
tered with tinsel and baubles, tumbling about her,
Ah's sister presented a lovely picture. Her
complexion was warm and delicately glowing;
her hair, black and smooth, seemed to glisten
with hfe ; while her large eyes gazed with abstrac
tion down the tempting thoroughfare. There
was about her an air of pensive melancholy, of
unrest, of suppressed fire, that was tempered
and rendered beautiful by the cold cameo fine
ness of her features, the undisturbed tranquilhty
of her pose.
Ali twitched nervously at my elbow, no doubt
regretting his indiscretion, and I passed on won-
[161]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
dering at the destiny that left such genuine
beauty to grow up in darkness in the back alley
of a bazaar — to rear brown brats whose whole
object in life would be to sell shoddy cloth, bits
of tins and sweetmeats, and to haggle shrilly
over pice. . . .
Zanzibar Town is the great metropolis of the
East Coast. It is Rome to the dusky pilgrim;
it is Paris to the reckless wanderers, from the
Bantu folk of Cape Delgado to the sons of the
corsairs of Oman. Its clubs; its coffee shops;
its cinemas ; its dark, arched rooms, where dusky
belles from India, Arabia, the Somali Coast, and
Zanzibar giggle and shrill and dance monotonous
dances; its spreading mango trees under whose
shelter the torches burn and the tom-toms beat
the measures of night-long ngomasj its shops
tumbling with riches of roughly carved ivory and
ebony, or hammered Cingalese silver and gems;
its bazaars, gaudy with cheap cloth — kikoys,
hodrunks, kanzas, bright with prints of flags and
ships and emblems of royalty; the great ships
lying in its roads, pouring into the lap of black
Africa the increasing luxuries of Europe; the
dhows bearing commerce from the Persian Gulf,
the Seychelles, and Madagascar — all, all and
[162]

«fPI%s

*~ MtfriNC

,-r •..

Zanzibar, Chief Port of the East African Coast, Former ly the Center of the Slave Trade, Showing on the
Right the Sultan's Palace.

A Corner of the Goanese Market in Nairobi, British East Africa, Between Five and Six Thousand Feet Above
The Sea and Virtually on the Equator.

SOUTH OF SUEZ
more, contribute to the renown and lure of Zan
zibar. Whether it is a Hindu wedding ghstening
with tinsel, coloured hghts, and mock armour,
with frightened boy bridegroom and smug, pat
ronising sire ; or a visit to the great Mahometan
club in a grove of mangoes by a beach on
the outskirts of town, where adolescent Hin
dus ape the manners of Eton and Harrow on
the cricket pitch, — "Oah, well played, sarel
Bowled ! Bowled, sare !" — or an expedition with
Mahomet, darting in and out among the stately
dhows from Muscat looking over likely bargains
in teakwood tonnage, or some adventurous quest
down dark, whispering alleys at night with a
companion still rolling on his sea legs — each page
contained a new story for me. But always the
moral was the same, and the moral was Ixion's :
"Adventures are to the Adventurous."
The hfe of the bazaar is a peculiar thing. To
the philosopher it is mostly very broad human
comedy ; but occasionally there is presented some
tragic circumstance, violent and inexplicable,
that leaves a lingering memory of colour and
flame and troubled questioning. The inexpli
cable fascinates but never satisfies.
[163]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
For instance, one day there was a hubbub in
the bazaar — rifle shots, banging doors, shouts, a
loud rising hum — and this is what occurred:
Two sepoys, coming away from Beyt-el-
Ajaib, the palace of the Sultan, struck by a sud
den madness, turned into the bazaar. At the
shop of Damoder Jerab they found the inoffen
sive Khoja manager sitting on a stool, calm and
contented. One of the sepoys calmly raised his
rifle and shot the unsuspecting man in his fat
stomach. . . .
Instantly the bazaar was in a quivering panic.
Shutters went up with a clatter; the brass-stud
ded doors closed with muffled bangs; and all in
the alleys scampered to shelter like frightened
rabbits. A wet Banian — brother of beasts and
bugs, who would have thought it as great a crime
to kill a rat as his own grandmother — trying to
slip unseen down a dark, moist alleyway, palpi
tating with terror, was discovered by the sardonic
gaze of the sepoy, and a second bullet flew. It
struck the Banian in the chest, and knocked him
with a faint whimper into a muddied drain.
There were stirrings, whisperings, choked
cries, tinkle of silver and rattle of brasses behind
the dark walls. In an instant the narrow, wet
[164]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
alleyways were deserted save for a few old men
and women, too stunned to move quickly, and
some children, lost in the swift panic. Four
women, coming to an upper window to look
down into the stirring bazaar, made a pretty,
colourful picture under a Byzantine arch with a
drab background. They were terrified with
anxiety for their children ; but one of the sepoys'
bullets scattered them like bits of bright plu
mage. Ah Bhanji, who was of course at hand, saw
his child in the street and rushed out to draw him
to safety just as another small boy, seeing all
doors closing about him, flung himself against
Dharsey's great brass-studded portal, crying
out: "Mohammed Ali Dharsey, open the door!
Open the door, Mohammed Ali Dharsey! Help
me! Open the door! . . ."
While the httle fellow beat frantically at the
black, carved door, behind which the merchants
wrung their hands helplessly, the sepoy turned
with a flashing smile and shot him.
When the two sepoys had expended their am
munition, except for a bullet apiece, they went
on a short distance, conversing calmly together,
[165]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
till they came to a convenient barasa at the door
of a shop kept by an old woman. They told her
to shut her door, and when she had done this
and the street was clear, sitting down a short
distance apart, they raised their rifles and fired
simultaneously at each other, both falling mor
tally wounded. ... So these two hillmen, born
and reared in some remote hamlet perhaps on
the snowy slopes of the Himalayas, when the
blood madness came upon them, found their
deaths in the steaming bazaars of Zanzibar. . . .
"Phew," said Ah, mopping his brow as he
finished giving me his version. "How very near
you not can able make business to-day! Sup
pose I deaded! No broker, no shauri! Eh,
bwana? . . ."
And after consideration, I do think the Head
Office would have been a bit querulous at any
unwarranted delay caused thereby.
The man I most hked was Hadji Mahomet
bin Ali, a pure-blooded Arab from the Yeman.
There was no compromise about the Hadji; he
had a sohd, downright character, bluff, direct
manner, formed his opinions after brief con
sideration, and acted with decision. He was an
hamal contractor, engaged in supplying steve-
[166]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
dores, hamals, and women to sort and clean
cloves and copra, drag the stuff in carts from
end to end of the town, load it in barges, and
stow it in the holds of the big ships swinging in
the roads. To carry on this work successfully,
he had to have keen perception, initiative, and a
profound knowledge of the native labourer.
Often at night when the "most costly roof in
East Africa" suddenly became porous under a
beating rain, threatening the destruction of thou
sands of sacks of cloves, I would send a mes
senger — old, black, blear-eyed Belalli, in a night
gown, sandals and red tarbush, Belalli, a pen
sioner, and once about the best ivory expert on
the Black Continent — I would send him search
ing for Mahomet bin Ah, scurrying through the
drenching downpour as anxious over the cloves
as a parvenu over a string of pearls. . . . Pres
ently into the darkness of my room would come
the Hadji, silent and grave, his black beard drip
ping moisture, his smouldering eyes steady under
the sopping turban, the hilt of his dagger gleam
ing with the wet.
"Maharabah!" he would greet me. "What
is the trouble now, effendi?". . . And within
twenty minutes the big godowns would be re-
[ 167 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
verberating with the shouts and songs of coolies
struggling in the glow of huge blazing lights to
clear the threatened cloves.
Whenever I ran into the Hadji at the Clove
Market, I spent many pleasant moments with
him discussing the world and its people. Look
ing through the overflowing godowns out to the
open bay where the great three-masted teak-
wood dhows congregated from every corner of
the Indian Ocean, and the rusted iron steam
ships, worn with wartime's trafficking, tugged
wearily at their chains, and the small battered
fishermen's craft and outriggers from the main
land drifted about like chance-blown autumn
leaves, we swung our heels under a hamal cart
and let the world pass in review.
We both knew Arab and Jewish traders in
Aden and along the Somali Coast, and had deal
ings with Parsi merchants of Bombay. Ma
homet had been a veritable Sinbad, and told his
tales as the story-tellers of old Baghdad told
theirs :
"There lived in the Hedjaz a merchant who
was my uncle ; and when I was a boy, my father
sent me to him to undertake a trip to Mogadishe.
This voyage we carried camels to trade with the
[168]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Somalis for goats, hides, bullocks, gum copal,
kart, or whatever else might offer a profit in
Aden or Medina. . . .
"You have not been to Muscat! I myself
went there on my fourth trip, to purchase dates
and rugs. . . .
"Ah, effendi, I thought I had travelled. But
you, you who are half my age, have seen twice
as much."
I suggest deprecatingly: "One man may
travel far and see nothing; while another, sit
ting in his shop door, sees all the world pass be
fore him. To travel does not always mean to
learn, Hadji."
"By Allah, that is true. Look!"
And he indicates a little, weary, home-sick
group, squatting by the shelter of a wall, gaz
ing out to sea, or stealing curious glances at the
all-important Indians and the black Swahilis
shuffling and lounging past. They are Arabs
from Oman, three youths and a girl. She is un
veiled and has the wild, clean-featured beauty
of the desert, with large, liquid eyes, and a skin
that is warm and fresh ; while the youths, comely
and hthe, are plainly anxious to be off again.
One glance tells us they have come in a dhow
[ 169 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
from the Persian Gulf, picking their way among
the stars across the waste of the Indian Ocean,
trusting to Allah and every chance wind that
blew. ...
Envy rises in me. I too should hke to sail
those seas, master of my dhow, and a plaything
of the winds — to take my chance with Kismet on
the open seas, while my heart leaped with hfe,
and my tongue sang songs as old as Hafiz:
"By Allah ! wild with love I flame ;
And he who loves is ne'er to blame!
Drink, mahabubie, drink!"
I suggest this to the Hadji, and he smites his
thigh: "Allah! Allah! We will do this, ef-
fendi! You and I, we will . . ."
But I already foresee my departure in a big,
ratthng, lop-sided transport packed with blacks
in khaki, with web kits stuffed with cartridges.
But some time, Hadji, some time ! . . .
Besides these three, there were my insolent
black overseer, Adbaraka, always short of
money, haughty with the women, among whom
he imagined himself an Arab, yet proud of his
work; and dear old Belalli, shuffling, mumbling,
laughing Belalli, gentle and anxious as a grand-
[170]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
mother, and loyal as a dog; and Ah, my boy,
afflicted with elephantiasis, dragging a foot the
size of a gate post, till I gave him a hut and took
on his rogue of a brother in his place ; and Bimzi,
chief of the hamals, with the body of a Hercules
and the good-nature of a puppy, despite a gash
across his face from ear to chin — a memento of
happy, care-free days in Muscat. . . . They
were all good children, and gave sufficient anx
iety and amusement to fit every mood.
Never was there a tedious moment from the
hour of singing dawn when I awakened to the
greeting of the dusky damsels who brought the
water for my bath, their broad splayed feet flip-
flopping on the stone floor, their eyes rolling
roguishly under the dripping vessels poised on
their kinky heads, the great red and yellow but
tons in their stretched ears gleaming against
vast expanses of bare brown skin, their flimsy,
coloured hodrunks drawn tight about their sway
ing bodies, and their betel-stained gums showing
in broad grins as each called in turn:
"Jambo, bwana! Peace, master! Jambo!
Jambo! Jambo!". . . This, and the warm light
pouring through the arches, the twittering of the
love-birds on the roofs, the distant songs of boat-
[171]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
men swinging to their oars, the call of bugles
across the waters, a banging of doors and bolts,
and httle bursts of shrill laughter from the
women in the godown below; and Ah, apologetic
because of his big foot, bearing a tray of pine
apples, oranges, bananas, and mangoes, still
cool with the dew of night — all indicate
dawn, and another day. . . . And thence on
ward each hour is filled with its appropriate ad
venture, until at last night comes and crowns
them all. Oh, the nights of Zanzibar — wild
nights, weird nights, nights full of charm and
harmony! The old days are passing when an adventure
in the dark bazaars ended often in the "hough!"
of a dagger struck home, the thud of a falling
body, the broken sigh of a defeated soul. It
may still end so; but the intriguing mind
finds other distractions, and long-cloaked figures
crowned in high red tarbushes keep the law —
within radius of the glow of arc-hghts. Besides,
there are sufficient diversions beyond the walls
of harims, and the divans of the gamblers — the
coffee stalls sell pink and yellow sodawater,
bottled by Hindus; electric lights make bright
spots about the sukhs where farmer and fisher-
[172]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
man dump their wares, and romance still sur
vives. One day I saw a small fish, which a
fisherman had sold for seven pice, retailed for
seven thousand rupees because it was discovered
that Allah had inscribed its scales with a sacred
phrase from the Koran! On the edge of the
town broad, palm-fringed football fields are lit
tered with youths in many-coloured garbs like
chips upon a green baize table; and under the
protection of a grove of palms there rises a can
vas temple, reared for the great god of Mirth.
Every night within this temple — where
gather wrinkled Arab sailors from Muscat or
Madagascar or red-faced, burly English sailors
from where the Severn flows ; black askaris from
the Ulogoro hills; bearded sepoys from the
Punjaub; hilarious Tommies from Battersea;
precise Parsis in hnen-dusters, with round,
varnished hats; squatting, half -naked Banians
with loin-cloths tucked between their knees;
Goanese dressed hke mid- Victorians and speak
ing Portuguese; Swahilis in red tarbushes and
white kanzas and immeasurable grins across their
black faces; natives of Seychelles; aboriginal
Wahadimu; Khojas; and Japanese; old, young,
and middle-aged, their children, their mistresses,
[173]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
and gigghng painted ones, coquettishly rolling
their eyes behind their yashmaks, or brazenly un
veiled — all, all wait with the same emotions the
coming of the god. . . . And the high priest,
standing on a chair, waves for silence.
He is sightless in one eye, his cratered face
indicating that small-pox was to blame. Old
blue-and-white striped pantaloons and well-worn
sandals, a discarded tweed waistcoat, a dirty,
badly rolled turban, set him off and lend dignity
to the impressively raised hands as he makes his
announcements in a cracked voice in four lan
guages, ending with Kis-swahih and English :
"Juma-na-moja, watu wote watacuja hopa!
Shahli Shaplin! ! ! Cheka-cheka-cheka! . . .
Satterday night, Larf-larf-larf-larf ! . . ."
And the babel of languages suddenly becomes
harmony. Each understands all; and all under
stand to the depths the great roar that shakes
the temple walls when a figure — mainly Boots, a
Stick, a Little Bowler Hat, a Moustache, and a
Vitalising Spark — suddenly appears on the wall,
trips, and lands on its chin amid Californian
scenery. . . .
This is the common meeting ground for all the
world. [174]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
At other times I must play many parts, for
it's bad for a man to neglect his own; and I
never do. The world for me is a three-ringed
circus, and myself a boy who sees each ring, yet
somehow misses nothing.
I spent decorous nights at the Club, drinking
Child's cocktails in emulation of a man whom I
regarded with whimsical respect, — the same who
was instrumental in laying ten miles of toy rail
road along the coral beach, through the crowded
bazaar, and among the palms to the toy village
of Bu-bu-bu, — but avoiding the bridge tables
where liver patients tested their symptoms; and
dined with boastful httle traders, or fed-up-
soldiers, or blase administrators; or spent hours
over ancient periodicals from London. Some
times I dined in the uniform of Piccadilly with
People of Importance and discussed high topics
cleverly. More often I followed my natural in
clinations, and made merry in neighbouring
Messes, or my own, where, gathered about
pianos, we sang sentimental ditties and mourn
ful lays. Our favourite haunt was the home of
a Man from Detroit.
The first floor of the great barrack where he
lived was filled with oil and rare petroleum
[ 175 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
products. But on the third floor were his rooms,
littered with delicately carved bits of ivory on
ebony stands, old armour and rare weapons, lace
and silk, tasteful pictures, and a piano ; while in
a neighbouring room were all the essential ad
juncts to conviviality. According to the oc
casion, whether a birthday or one of those fetes
that bring back memories of a land obscured by
distance, we partook of liqueur cocktails, mint
juleps, or champagne punch, and made the
starry welkin tremble with songs of long trails
and cosy little homes. They were quaint parties.
"Bob" and "Ascot," the former red-faced and
grinning, with fresh, curly hair tousled over
merry blue eyes, the latter tanned and gloomy of
aspect, though possessed of a sombre devil —
both fresh from the rocking bridges of their re
spective commands, little storm-tossed sister
ships, inseparables, who poked their noses in
every bay or delta along the Germanee coast,
hunting for trouble and finding it; "Catchy
Boy," with young and smiling face, quizzical,
sun-bleached blue eyes, and hair prematurely
grey from nocturnal jungle tete-a-tetes with truc
ulent Germanees, unconverted black men, and
inquiring beasts of predatory kinds; the Little
[ 176 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Trader with the big voice, who, in serious moods,
shook the markets on flying visits from Tana
narive in Madagascar to Kisumu on Victoria
Nyanza; the Man from Detroit at the piano,
smiling, debonair, large of girth, and big of
heart, with "the latest" (two years old) at his
finger-tips — the group of us would hang arm-in-
arm about the piano, heads thrust forward, eyes
straining to read the words, while Bob howled:
"For . . . just . . . one . . . day-an'-one-night
You . . . were . . . muh . . . dream-uv-deehght
Till . . . you . . . fay-ded-away
With-thuh-light-uv-thuh-day. . . ."
All heads would come up with a jerk, faces
turn raptly to the twinkling sky, mouths gape
wide in one simultaneous movement, and a
melancholy wail tremble on the balmy air :
"Ohn . . . Lake . . . Champlain!". . .
Other nights were not musical nights — nights
when we played fox-and-geese in our pyjamas
through the dark, slimy, labyrinthine alleyways
at three ack emma, or scaled forbidden walls by
means of drain pipes, or stormed each other's
citadels under a barrage of soda-water bottles,
[177]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
pineapples, mangoes, oranges, buckets, and
lumps of coral, which, crashing on corrugated-
iron roofs, raised unappreciated din. Again,
there were other nights, pohte nights when we
supped and danced with propriety.
One such night we spent at the Bishop's house.
Under a soaring moon, with soft, magnolia-
scented breezes blowing from the whispering sea,
and the Sultan's black band filling the air with
the languorous strains of tropic music, the stri
dency of life seemed to pass away. Drifting
across the dancing space with an attractive,
dreamy-eyed damsel resting in my arms, and the
notes of La Paloma, so soft they mingled with
the murmur of the waves, and the wind stirring
through the palm fronds and laughing amid the
waxy leaves of the clove trees, beating tenderly
on my receptive heart, these, I felt, were mo
ments that gave life its sweetness. Piquant
thrills are for other times.
Yet as night blew on, and rain-drops began to
spit from a black, heaving sky, and the crowded
frolickers gradually vanished in rickshaws and
quaint vehicles through the dark shadows of
the surrounding groves, there came a cry from
out a dark lane. Catchy Boy and I, arriving
[ 178 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
together from different points, discovered an
old-fashioned closed carriage ditched in the
bushes, with a pair of overturned horses flounder
ing and struggling in their traces. Black, terri
fied footmen in scarlet coats jumped about with
flickering link-lights. A beam disclosed a silk-
clad leg thrust through the shattered glass of the
door; and a charming face, flushed and dis
hevelled, lifted itself from the wreckage, exclaim
ing petulantly:
"Damme ! This is a pretty pickle !"
Catchy Boy and I crossed glances in the dim
light, and struck by the same thought, he drew
an imaginary snuff-box, and exclaimed softly:
"Zounds, me lord! Sure 'tis no proper night
for wenches to take the road from Bath without
escort.". . .
So we delivered them from the ditch and set
them safe upon their way.
Peruque's dance I remember chiefly because
of an incident. It was a dance and supper in
Victoria Gardens, where the ladies of the Sul
tan's harim formerly bathed. It was a charm
ing affair, with the sole contretemps of a baby
hippopotamus blundering in among the tables
and chairs and disporting on the dance-floor until
[179]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
persuaded to leave by fifteen determined natives
with ropes. . . .
But the best nights of all were at home, when
the babbling city had sunk reluctantly into
silence. My huge old Arab house had the reputation
of being haunted. Unfortunately, I cannot
prove this; but every night at two in the morn
ing I awakened and lay for many minutes listen
ing to the few faint sounds that tapped musically
upon the bell of silence : the everlasting whispers
and laughter of the waves upon the beach, the
tap-tap-tap of death's-head beetles in the berities
of the ceiling, the rustling movement of rats, the
clear silver tinkle of ships' bells in the harbour,
the unexpected rattle of a chain, far off the
plaintive shriek of a lemur, the stirring of palm
fronds outside my window. Turning my head,
I could look out through the porticos across the
water, silvery under the moon, with red and
white and green hghts glowing from the grey
shadows of ships. A pale, brooding moon some
times gazed at me from behind a fan of palms;
and then ghosts would truly steal about me,
tender, ministering ghosts — memories of other
days, and dim dreams that may yet come true.
[ 180 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
In their arms I'd sink again to sleep. . . .
Stretching behind the venal Town, which is
huddled upon a spit of land, the rolling, em
bowered hills rise high and higher to the north
ward upon their coral base, until, near the httle
village of Mkokotoni at the northern end of the
island, an outcropping of genuine strata has
hfted itself several hundred feet above the blue
seas. Never have I seen a more beautiful or richer
island, except perhaps - moody Oahu. Rolling,
verdant hills and gentle valleys with sweet, clear
water and a teeming wealth of fruit and palm,
broad, curving bays upon whose dazzling coral
beaches the iridescent waters toss a feathery
white fringe of surf, make a setting for the
ruins of old castles, smothered under all-embrac
ing creepers, and the deep-arched Arab houses
on the shambas.
The ruins tell tales of the days when the black
Zang potentates yielded sovereignty of the seas
to the questing Portuguese who rounded the
Cape in the fifteenth century; and of the later
days of dark, passionate struggle when the
Imams of Muscat shattered the might of Portu
gal from Mogadishe to Kilwa, a small port now,
[181]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
but then a place of many mosques. "With the
passing of the day of Tipoo Tib, that power, too,
has since passed away; for the present swarthy,
black-bearded Sultan, though he smiles sardoni
cally as he rides quietly forth to take the evening
air, has no illusions as to the extent of his might.
For the power of the Sayids has now passed.
. . . Bob and Ascot and Catchy Boy and myself
— we now uphold the Raj ! . . .
You would not think it to see us spinning
along narrow, coralline lanes hedged with groves
of cocoanut and glistening, fragrant clove trees
— the Man from Detroit asleep in the limousine,
making a pillow for Bob and Ascot, who snore
softly, each on a shoulder, lulled by the hum of
the motor, the soporific fragrance of the air, the
soothing motion of the car as it dips and swerves
and soars, and the rush of balminess that pours
about us; while the shm Goanese driver keeps
his eyes on the road, and I let my dreaming gaze
wander afield.
These lanes are traversed only by swaying
bullock-carts, sleepy jack-asses, white, trotting
Muscat donkeys, and Swahilis on foot carrying
on their heads large green baskets woven with
palm and overflowing with fruit. Occasionally
[ 182 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
striking hoofs awaken echoes, and an Arab,
mounted on a blooded horse, comes dancing by,
gravely saluting as his steed curvets and rears,
maintaining with dignity the ancient principle
that the mounted man is the superior man. This
is a shamba owner — one of the old stock of
Arabs who have divided the island into great
plantations where they cultivate the clove and
cocoanut, and such things of lesser importance
as the aloe. They were great aristocrats in the
days of slaves, but now that the Swahihs are
nominally independent, it's a different matter.
. . . Greasy Hindus, squatting in the bazaars,
advance money on prospective crops — and the
Arab, who cares nothing for to-morrow, is grace
fully yielding his estates to a more wily civilisa
tion. Along the roads are httle villages, clusters
of huts with walls of mud plastered on inter
twined pole withes, with roofs of palm thatch.
Screens stand about on which hang manioc dry
ing in the sun; and on broad reed makandas
under the trees the drying meat of the cocoanut
shrinks from the shell to form copra; while the
last fragrant pistils of the clove crop are spread
on mats nearby. By some of the huts are
[183]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
barasas, or mud platforms on which Hindu
traders lounge, trading odd bits of tin, beads,
cigarettes, and sweets, for cloves and copra
filched by the native from his Arab master.
Naked children, a few chickens and guinea
fowls, a goat or two, and occasionally a bullock,
wander about the huts or tumble over each other
under the shelter of umbrageous mango trees
littering the ground with succulent fruit. The
lanes are lined with trees — mango, banyan, palm
(the courtly cocoanut; the betel, dainty and
proud as an aigrette; and the sensible sago),
spreading jack-fruit, clumps of bamboo, and
groves of clove dotted with pink clusters of
aromatic mother-of-clove. Through the clean,
dark-green foliage of the cloves, or over grey,
crumbled walls overlaid with soft yellow, red,
and green moss and lichen, peep red-tiled or
iron-grey roofs and the curves of deep arches
where the Arabs keep their wonted state.
The native Swahilis of the plantations are
still only semi-independent as they depend on
the shambas for work and wages, while the gov
ernment regulates their movements. But with
a little cash, a panga to cut cane, and a hoe to
scratch a patch of soil, they live in plenty and
[184]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
contentment. Juicy pineapples and mealy ba
nanas grow wild and are regarded as weeds on
the shambas, while the mango drops its succulent
fruit broadcast, and orange trees scatter their
golden crop by the roadside. . . .
Over brimming brooks, around emerald hill
sides, by the side of dazzling bays, along the edge
of bluffs from whose heights we can see the
fisher-craft darting about like water spiders on
the calm surface, we come to tempting spots —
Mkokotoni and Chwaka, where there are a few
bungalows. Here we picnic and bathe. It is
delicious water, and to bathe in it is like flinging
yourself into the arms of amorous Dawn. . . .
I have often swum at night, too, far out among
the vessels in the harbour of Zanzibar Town,
every stroke weaving a garment of phosphorus
about me, and in the pleasure of the swim forget
ting all too soon the lesson I learned from Aden's
sand sharks. . . .
To the glories of this island the European
seems bhnd and indifferent. He plays golf and
tennis conventionally at Mnazi Moja, the sports
club on the edge of town; but beyond this, unless
he is a soldier and must, he will not venture
except to picnic for a few hours. He does not
[ 185 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
seem able to tear himself away from the pathetic
prattle and tame delights of the Club, or prox
imity to the Resident whose favours are like fickle
fortune, or, perhaps, the companionship of others
of their kind and dalhance among the few white
ladies whom the fate of their husbands has drawn
to the island.
Argumentatively, I once made this opinion
public. "My dear chap, don't be silly," said the Doc-
tor, glaring over a whiskey-and-soda. "White
men can't stand it — malaria — dysentery — fever
— damn rot."
I pointed out that as a soldier I had lived
weeks at a time in the country, in its most dis
reputable and deadly parts, and had grown heavy
on it.
"That may be," said a young administrator,
"but you forget that this is only a protectorate.
We must look after the interests of the present
land-owners, you know. We can't take their
property from them. . . ."
"But Hindu usurers may?" I suggested. "No.
The trouble is this. You've got a nice httle
island here, and you all have nice little jobs, and
you don't trouble your little heads a single
[ 186 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
thought more than the exigencies of the service
demand. You don't want to popularise the
island because you couldn't stand official com
petition. You've got ice-plants, a ten-mile
railroad, soda-water establishments, electric
lights. . . ."
"Well, dash it, after all, that's something."
"It is," I admit — blandly, I expect. "But all
those things were started by traders, mostly
American. . . ."
"Well, why don't you go in for planting?"
There he had me.
I looked from the balcony out across the bay,
at the monitor squatting in the roads, at a black
Ellerman freighter unloading into red barges,
at a plume of smoke on the horizon, at the clouds
banked low over the African mainland. I was
particularly fascinated by that bank of distant
clouds. The rumbling of the vessels and the din
of the bazaar rose to my ears, filling them with
a dull buzzing, while I seemed to smell the heady
smell of a ship's hold. . . . Suddenly I knew
that in another month this island would be but
a memory. . . .
"Ah, well, the island is yours," I said. "There
are other things for me to do; and after all I
[187]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
am somewhat of a visitor. ... I have seen it;
I know it pretty well; and I like it. But . . .
toujours there is something else to be done first."
Toujours the open road and a free heel; tou
jours a flowing sheet, and the long slope of the
utab. • • •

[188]

''^¦^1Bi^fl^^%i<^Uwi .tijjanminntttan"

The Wilderness Patrol
DO you remember one day under the white
tents of Dar-es-Salaam — "the Port of
Peace" — when a scorching sun poured down too
great a heat for drills, and guard-mount was a
sweltering ordeal, and the hospital regulations
gave you one of your rare and brief opportu
nities to visit us in our meagre camp, that you
asked me about a patrol I took with The Com
missioner beyond the Escarpment? . . . There
was too much else to talk about then, so I
couldn't give you much of an idea of the coun
try. Catchy Boy and Bwana Poor had so much
better to talk about; and The Commissioner,
sober, was too great a distraction. Besides, as
I remember, I was pretty well fed up with the
bush. . . . But when, at last, they slung you in
a stretcher aboard ship, and you sailed in doubt
for England and home, I gathered together some
scraps of paper and jotted down notes of that
particular safari to remind you of old days, an
old pal, and a hot and thunderous land that
[189]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
nearly broke us both, yet left us richer far than
ever wealth could do. . . . It is just a hap
hazard account without much regard for chro
nology or tense ; and much there is that you can
fill in, for, of course, the most of it is left out!
... It was a war safari, naturally; but there is
practically no talk of scrapping. The flurries
of war we may always have with us; but the
quivering wilderness, the great horned monsters
brooding in the heat haze of primordial times,
and the elemental savages who gibber in pre
historic gloom, are not eternal. ... A few sen
tences may serve to bring up pleasant though
melancholy memories — things which we must dis
cuss at greater length and in another mood if we
ever foregather again. . . .
When we struck a bearing, then, across my
watch, and located ourselves by an angle drawn
from the dim shoulder of Essimingor in the west
and the white crest of Kilima Njaro floating in
the heat haze a hundred and twenty miles to the
northeast, we focussed our attention on the map.
"It's wrong," said The Commissioner at last
stubbornly. "We should have found water an
hour ago." Pointing to the tiny blue pencil
marks that indicate water-holes — " 'Sometimes
[190]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
dry,' " he quoted scornfully. Then with a hoarse
burst of spleen: "Every blasted one has been dry
for ninety-eight years!"
Certainly the only evidence of water had been
sun-scorched rock and baked mud, cut and scat
tered by the spoor of innumerable wild creatures.
The water-bottles and chaguls were empty.
We had covered nearly fifty miles along a dusty,
pebble-strewn trail fringing the arid Massai
Steppe, and were footsore and dangerously dry.
Before us was the prospect of another broad,
waterless stretch, and the possibility of our little
column breaking up.
I hfted my eyes anxiously to the resting
column of askaris squatting by the trail, rifles
across their knees, or sitting upright gazing cu
riously at The Commissioner and myself; while
the weary porters, stretching to the rear for al
most half a mile, lolled in their stained blankets,
impassive as cattle in the dust. Old Sergeant
Kombo, leaning on his rifle, gazed fiercely across
the hot, straw-coloured hills of the rolhng
Steppe; while my orderly, Ali bin Sudi, looked
with dreamy eyes at the waiting line of askaris
with the humorous cynicism of one who has often
faced death. [191]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
The Commissioner rose uncomfortably and put
the whistle to his cracked hps. The askaris fell
in stiffly; the porters took up their fifty-pound
loads with low grunts; the men of the baggage
and rear guards cursed listlessly, calling out,
"Fung a! Fung a! Ke-lowse up!" — and the
long single line shuffled forward in a low cloud
of dust.
Ali, by my side, suddenly touched my arm and
pointed with his chin to the westward.
"Kongoni, effendi!"
Floating in the haze, a series of impalpable
spots moved along the base of a distant kopje.
This was sufficient to indicate water; and a half
hour later we came to Msuakini, and found a
pool among some sere sedges. It was slimy, and
it stunk, resembling nothing more than a slough
in a pig-sty, for an endless variety of wild
creatures had wallowed in it. Our unspoken re
lief at having occupied the place without a fight,
however, and the craving of our withered cor
puscles, overwhelmed the most remote repug
nance. Pickets were posted; fires lighted; a kongoni
I had shot was cut up and distributed; and the
camp settled comfortably for the night. The
[ 192 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Commissioner and I, lolling in our camp chairs,
discussed possibilities until the stars hghted up,
the shadows closed in upon us, and the veldt
awoke to the throbbing grunt of the hunting
lion. . . .
The next evening, after passing through a
belt of scrub bush and dom palm, we debouched
on the Mbugwe plain, flat as a pancake with
the great Escarpment rising crust-hke over two
thousand feet above its western edge. The sur
prised natives, seizing their spears and driving
their cattle before them, fled into the bush. Ah
and a couple of other askari diplomats were sent
to reassure them; and presently, since we did not
attack, they stole back, one by one, and their
square, low, basket-like huts began to stir with
hfe. When we had settled ourselves by the camp-
fires, the sultani himself came doubtfully forward
with an escort of naked warriors bringing gifts
of mtama meal, smoky milk, and eggs. He was
soon assured of our friendship and good inten
tions, and squatting before us with red blanket
drawn about his shoulders, gesticulating with his
feathery spears, he retailed the habari of his
villages, while his chiefs and runners on either
[193]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
hand nodded confirmation and chewed the dates
we gave them.
A Germanee column, he said, had recently
entered the district, occupied the neighbouring
village of Madukani, ravaged the country-side,
and marched up the Escarpment and away into
the primeval forests to the north of Lake Eyassi.
They showed us trophies. This man had killed
a cook. Others had tracked and speared askaris
in the bush. Another had lain in the grass and
waited for the askari who had murdered his
brother, and when he drew near, had risen up
and plunged a spear through him in full sight
of the German camp ... In the end the Ger-
manees had been obliged to use their machine
guns. . . .
With daylight we marched to the place where
a scattered collection of huts had taken the name
of Madukani — "at the shops" — without further
information of the enemy. But here we met
B — , the Assistant Political Officer, who had
come down to see us from his red, castle-like boma
stuck up on the roof of the Escarpment. He
had a handful of askaris and a Boer ex-sergeant
to control them; and with these retainers he
[194]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
ruled a district of over twenty thousand square
miles. Striding in front of a weather-beaten, angu
lar horse, the A. P. O. came along the trail. His
shorts disclosed a pair of long, tan; sinewy legs;
his sleeveless tunic hung from him in patched
folds; a peak had been sewed to his khaki-
covered tarbush, and this was pulled down over
his eyes. Behind him in a red blanket stalked
his gun-bearer, an outlawed Wattaturu chief, an
exceptionally tall and handsome man with the
features and dignity of an Abyssinian, while
at his heels trotted a grinning Massai child,
carrying a shot-gun and clad in a cast-off
double-breasted waistcoat which hung to his
knees. With this picturesque escort we entered the
hamlet. I took up my headquarters in a grass banda.
We then made a division of forces so that The
Commissioner and the A. P. O. could ascend the
Escarpment and endeavour to locate the German
force to the northward, while I held the plain
to keep the enemy from the water-holes, to check
any force from the south, and to break up what-
[ 195 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
ever detachments The Commissioner might suc
ceed in driving off the plateau. . . .
The days that followed were full of activity
and unending dehght — a period of benevolent
autocracy almost as good as the most excited
imaginings of boyhood.
My palace was the grass-thatched banda at
which insects perpetually nibbled; my capital, a
scattering handful of mud and thatch huts where
pioneer Swahilis and a few lost Hindus traded
beads, wire, and cotton goods for hides, ivory,
and cattle; my domain spread away into the in
definable limits of the Massai Steppe on the
one hand, and to the base of the Great Escarp
ment on the other ; while constantly I was stimu
lated by the piquant thrill that all this was
threatened by a daring and desperate enemy,
and was mine to hold.
Aside from such normal activities as working
out patrols, ambushes, and scouting parties,
and locating and examining tactical points, my
Scotch sergeant, "Robbie," and I were kept
busily engaged in drilling our men, mamtaining
discipline, collecting and forwarding supplies,
and tending the sick. These latter included pa
tients suffering from pneumonia, fever, dysen-
[196]

The Line of a "Peace" Safari Winding in Single File, Porters Bearing Fifty-pound Loads En Route for the
Valley of Lions.

'.7

An n'gouia in the Form of a Tribal Dance of the Kikuyu, the Dancers Circling in Couples.

SOUTH OF SUEZ
tery, ophthalmia, and a couple of bad wounds.
Runners and akidas came to me daily with ru
mours and reports, or to hold shauris; and these,
squatted in a semicircle about my door, would
wait for hours before opening an oblique discus
sion that never by any chance disclosed the real
object of the visit until the last possible moment.
I bought cattle from the headmen, who duly
tried to cheat me, but my askaris were Mussul
mans and invariably disclosed the trick by de
livering into my presence various bits of diseased
tripe, bloated kidneys, and empurpled lungs.
Ensued considerable matata when I summoned
the akidas, and they endeavoured to placate me
with the subtle reasoning of soothing gifts, in
cluding everything from honey beer to wives
from among the famed beauties of Mbugwe.
Having seen fair specimens of the beauties, I
held my own in face of these offers. My moods,
however, were frequently softened by reports
that came in of hon, rhino, and elephant, spoored
and sighted upon the slopes of the Escarpment,
and leopards making themselves nuisances in the
villages. Once I went on a hon hunt with the sultani,
armed only with spears and shield. Beyond this
[ 197 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
I had little time for shooting. But one day a
villager came to me with an account of a leopard
who visited the huts each night. Ali treated the
tale with contempt; but the shenzi outdid him
self, until at last, having nothing else to do, I
decided to visit the hamlet myself.
It was about seven miles away, and the path
cut through a vast papyrus swamp threaded with
deep, smooth-running streams of delicious water.
The sun was declining, and the Escarpment
swelhng out with shadows.
In the waning light this swamp is very beauti
ful. Birds of rare plumage soar above it, or
float on its surface; while some, like daubs of
colour upon a blue canvas, dart among the reeds.
Clucking, gurgling, whistling, or, like the golden-
crested crane, uttering melancholy cries, they fill
the air with strange music. Water lihes large
and small and of many hues float in the open
spaces, and an aromatic perfume faintly pervades
the fresh atmosphere. It is the heart of Africa,
and a parliament of birds assembles here — the
scarlet "lightning bird" from the South, the
black ibis and the grey from the sedges of the
Nile, homely old storks from the chimney-pots
of Alsace-Lorraine, the angelic egret, gruffly
[198 J

SOUTH OF SUEZ
quacking flocks of duck and geese, dainty httle
water-birds so fight they seem to run upon the
water, and waltzing swallows who come from
God alone knows where. Surprised water-
buck, whistling with alarm, leap behind screens
of papyrus; elephants at night plunge and
wallow in the lush sedges; and to complete the
picture, the Wambugwe, in single file, with
gourds on their backs filled with curdled milk or
milk and blood, spears over their shoulders, and
bits of dirty coloured cloth or stained hide flung
loosely about them, shuffle silently along the
trails. . . . But as the shadows fall and the
clatter of bird life dies away, the swamp begins
to hum. . . .
Before we reached the other side we were as
sailed by clouds of ravenous mosquitoes. Here
darkness was a friend, for with the fading of
dayhght, the stinging tsetse had retired.
We traversed the wood-path in deepening
gloom, stumbling in numerous pits made by the
ponderous puds of elephant and rhino, and
straining our eyes to pierce the pall of blackness.
Every shadow seemed crouching to leap upon
us. In this unlovely gloom, through which I
stumbled with hair on end, our guide silently
[199]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
disappeared, leaving us to find our way
alone! . . .
Eventually we came to a small clearing with
a few huts and a fire burning in the square.
Some one was monotonously strumming a
stringed gourd, a baby was whining, and the men
of the village, squatted on three-legged stools,
were solemnly taking snuff and laughing over
idle jokes.
The headman dropped the gourd and tumbled
his stool over.
"Peace!" he cried. "Peace! Masters!"
A place was made by the fire. A gourd of
cold water was produced ; and when Ah told the
headman I had not eaten, wild honey and
banana wine were brought, which Ah shared
when I had had my fill. When I spoke of my
errand, however, several of the youths by the
fire laughed, and the headman stared with dis
may. "Bwana," he exclaimed desperately. "I sent
no runner. There is no leopard. We have not
seen or heard a cat since last new moon.". . .
In the next few minutes it was swiftly divulged
that Chaussi, son of the headman, had journeyed
to my banda hoping to procure a rifle. Return-
[200 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
ing, when he realised that his simple scheme was
spoiled, he had fled in a panic to the forest.
Ah was furiously sarcastic, and the headman
was apologetic and anxious ; but the youths were
secretly amused at the beating that awaited
Chaussi. At first I also was angry, but as I
sat gazing into the fire, occasionally lifting my
gaze to the ring of dark faces with white eyes
gleaming in the reflected hght of the red and
yellow flames, the deep shadows pressing close on
all sides, the wall of the Escarpment bending
above like huge thunder clouds, and the stars
peering and twinkling through the lace-work of
the forest, I allowed myself to sink soothingly
beneath deep waves of primitive emotions.
I hghted my pipe and told Mzee, the head
man, to continue with his music. The old man
picked up his gourd again, scowled fiercely for
silence, and commenced to pick at the strings.
In another moment his face shone; the notes
hummed and muttered; and shoulders began to
hft. Heads jerked automatically at each un
expected check in the pulsing music, and the
youths began to nudge each other and giggle.
We were soon encircled by the remaining vil
lagers, almost veiled by the night but for the
[ 201 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
sheen of their smooth bodies in the light of the
flames. The notes took on a quicker rhythm. The
deep gourd seemed a hving thing — the voice of
a satyr; it hummed; it gasped; it choked with
laughter; and my savage friends, first thrusting
forward the children, rapidly yielded to the in
toxication of the music. ... I became the centre
of one of those strange ngomas that lay bare the
very soul of the savage. . . .
The old man chanted, twitching and vibrating
to his own mad music ; the naked children, squat
ting back on their heels, convulsively kept time
with their little unmuscular bodies to the beats;
the girls and youths, on their knees, writhed
through well-studied evolutions, then leaped to
their feet, clapping their hands, stamping on the
beaten ground — panting, singing, shouting.
Sensual and without shame, naked with savage
grace, maddened by a strange sort of ecstasy —
it seemed to me as though the primitive soul,
awakened by music, tortured by a dawning con
sciousness, struggled to escape its bonds.
The scene, softened by the shadows, yet
grotesquely illumined by the flame; the wild
music hopelessly beating against the black vast-
[202]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
ness that smothered us ; my own aloof presence — ¦
amazed and amused me with its strange symbol
ism. I thought of dowager chaperones, of languid
beauties and lissom youths; of syncopations
stimulated by half dollars ; of draperies and bot
tled perfumes ; of transient beauty and moneyed
worth; of social talents and those who struggle
for the smile of the favoured. What folly!
Here before me was the beginning of all things
— here was the soul of mankind expressing in
the crudest form the savage instincts that are the
roots of our social hfe. The cynical old man
watches the play, grinning but keeping it within
hmits; the children mimic their elders; the
mothers urge on the reluctant daughters; the
youths, some bold, some bashful, leap in the in
toxication of the dance or hold back shyly, hop
ing to be persuaded! All are mad — all save
Chaussi, the outcast! Because he is an outcast,
peering bitterly from the shadows of the forest,
he realises a new perspective; he understands
true values.
I distinctly heard a fat, half -naked matron
urge her simpering daughter forward, exclaim
ing under her breath : [ 203 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ

'n

'Do not be a little idiot! See how Mud, the
daughter of Hot Work, is carrying on! Go
dance!". . .
And I broke up the ngoma in a burst of
laughter. . . .
The next afternoon a long lean runner came
down from the Escarpment with despatches.
The Comissioner and the redoubtable A. P. O.
had struck the German force on the slopes of
Oldeani. Though four days from his base, The
Commissioner had only one day's provisions;
while the Germanees were subsisting upon the
remains of a rhino. The country was a wilder
ness, and the nearest inhabited areas were suffer
ing from famine; so The Commissioner, despite
the enemy's machine guns and choice of position,
intended to attack immediately; and would I
come quickly to Mbulu to follow him up ?
I set out an hour later with Robbie, leaving my
boy and Ali behind, sick with fever. The going
was slow at first because my foot had become in
fected by the bite of some venomous insect. . . .
Looking upward at the dark wall of the
Escarpment, I felt the dehghtful sensation
of chmbing into the pages of an old ro
mance: — above, in the clouds, was the dim abode
[204 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
of a "She," a land of "People of the Mists."
There was no moon. My foot caused sharp
pains to dart up my thigh at every step. The
exertion of the climb, and the rare atmosphere,
made the blood beat heavily in the temples. We
struggled for breath, halting frequently to revive
ourselves. Heavy clouds hung close overhead,
and the forested slope was gloomy and silent
about us. The trail would have been absolutely
impassable but for a glorious accident.
Early in the evening the great swamp below
had been fired near the centre; and the flames,
unhindered by wind or obstacles, swept outward
in a perfect scarlet circle, throwing against the
dull canopy of clouds a livid light which was re
flected down again upon the thin winding path
to light us on our way. Weak creatures,
wheezing for the little bit of breath that gave
us motion, we seemed the only germs of life in
that roaring inferno, crawling painfully over the
edge while the caldron filled the air with terrify
ing sounds — the flame ripping through the thick,
dry papyrus, the wind sighing in the quivering
forest, the scream of tongues of fire hcking the
surface of cold water.
When we reached the edge of the Escarpment,
[205]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
a cold wind struck us ; so, wrapping ourselves in
our blankets, we made nests in the long grass
and took our chances with the Dark until the
pale sun unfolded to us the Land of Mists. . . .
It is a curious land. A table upon a table,
with a surf ace roughly seven thousand feet above
the sea, billowing in a turbulence of hills. Cut
off from the outer (and yet savage) world by the
tremendous walls of the Escarpment, there are
still other barriers that hem it in — the salt Lake
Eyassi to the west; the slopes of forest-clad
mountains to the north; the Massai Steppe and
salt Manyara to the east; and great reaches of
unexplored thorn bush and mountain to the
south. Thick mists often fill its valleys and rest
heavily on the hills; mountain streams brawl in
the ravines; while on the gentler slopes cattle
are tended by little black children shouting eerily
to their charges, and rough fields are tilled with
wooden hoes by the naked remnants of ancient
races. It is a vast citadel to which the survivors of
harried races fled in ones and twoes when the
lean Hamites swept down from the north. The
natives are strange in their manners, their lan
guages, and their physical characteristics. A
[ 206 ]

¦'-: ,;-r

A Family Gathering in a Massai Manyeta Behind a Thick Hedge of Impenetrable Thorn Bush.

A Massai Brave With One of His Wives, Along the Edge of the Massai
Steppe.

SOUTH OF SUEZ
complete nakedness, almost general in men and
women, seems to be the only common trait, for
some hve in huts, and eat meal and meat and
milk and honey, while others dwell in the forests
hke wild creatures, sleeping in nests or crevices
in the rocks where night finds them, and hving
impartially on locusts, small game, and white
ants. Some are comely and others almost typi
cal of neohthic times. . . .
The men came bounding down the trail with
long, springy strides, panting in peculiar shrill
whistles ; while the children trotted along behind
the goats and cattle, prodding them with spears.
The women, with all sorts of loads on their heads,
from crates of fowls to gourds of curdled milk,
shuffled along with hide petticoats flapping about
their knees, and — if they affected the style of
the Massai — heavy concentric rings of brass and
copper rattling about their necks, wrists, and
ankles. With varying degrees of shyness or
boldness, these all gave me greeting in different
tongues. "Jambo!" of the Swahili.
"Shoba!" of the Massai, spitting on their palms
and holding them forward.
"Ita-lala!" of the Wambulu. [207]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Among a flock of wrinkled wenches who came
upon me suddenly, I noticed one remarkably
pretty woman. She must have been of the same
stock as the A. P. O.'s presumed Wattaturu
chief, for she had the fineness of feature of
an Abyssinian. She was exceptionally tall,
straight-limbed and high-breasted; of a light
brown complexion; and with a countenance as
comely as any I've seen in Africa. She carried
her chin high, and her glance was level, though
not defiant, while her eyes, lustrous and intelli
gent, seemed to indicate a spirit and experience
eons beyond her black, grinning companions.
She gave me a swift glance, smiled, said "Ita-
lala" (so I knew she was of an ancient race),
and in a moment had passed, while I gazed after
her, perplexed, noting the comely figure, the blue
bead necklace, the soft kid-skin petticoat prettily
worked in blue and white glass beads and
cowries. . . . Suddenly a little withered old man
came skipping and sidling along the trail, jab
bering breathlessly. His sole possessions and
ornaments were two long bright spears, a scarred
old buffalo-hide shield, and a snuff-box of rhino
horn which swung on a dirty piece of string
about his neck, covering his chest with yellow
[208]

Massai Women Elaborately Gowned to Pay a Morning Call.

An Old Massai Woman— About Thirty— Eldest Wife of the
Headman of a Manyeta.

SOUTH OF SUEZ
powder. He chattered and whistled, and
chirped us a greeting.
Springing lightly into the air, the httle warrior
emitted a long, shrill whistle, leered suspiciously
at me and smirked a merry smirk.
"My wives, bwana! These are my wives!"
I have no doubt he paid as much as three goats
for the comely one. . . .
The red, castellated boma, chipped and scarred
with the marks of late fights, was in a whirl of
activity when I passed through the small, sprawl
ing village and approached the moated entrance.
The Commissioner had met with unexpected
success. By a bold bit of work, he and the
A. P. O. had managed to force the unconditional
surrender of almost the entire German force;
and had returned pretty well used up, but escort
ing almost two hundred prisoners and a fair
amount of booty.
Though weary and sore, the askaris were de
lighted with their accomplishment. Their eyes
flashed; they leaned forward, snapping their
salutes, but grinning from ear to ear ; and when
I spoke to them they jabbered like children in
their eagerness to let their old master know the
news. [209]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
"Effendi" said Sergeant Kombo with the
weary cynicism of the old soldier, "it was not too
bad. Not a proper battle, you understand; still,
not too bad." Then, when I smiled knowingly,
his eyes sparkled. "But, by Allah, excellency, it
was a very beautiful journey!". . .
One day some years ago, it seems, I sat
cosily in an inn with you overlooking the icy
waste of Long Island Sound, discussing the ex
ploits of the Emden, and then the Konigsberg
which had taken refuge in the mouth of the
Rufigi after destroying the Pegasus in Zanzibar
harbour. What stretch of imagination could
then have connected me with the capture of some
of its chief officers in one of the most remote
sections of Africa! . . .
The Commissioner and the A. P. O. were not
elated. They felt the peevishness of a small suc
cess ; were irritable because of the necessary book
work and accounting that these affairs entail,
but principally, I think, because there was only
a half -bottle of peppermint with which to cele
brate ; and some of the usual querulous straf eings
had just arrived in despatches.
We held a shauri in the A. P. O.'s living-room
— an attractive den littered with hon and leopard
[210]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
skins, a number of horns and heads, among
which was that of a three-horned rhino, and a
scattering of spears, shields, bows and arrows,
and knob-kerries — and examined into the state
of the nation. The Commissioner had been
ordered back to Aruscha, and the A. P. O. was
going to be extremely busy with civil affairs.
Nevertheless, a detachment of the Germanees
had escaped capture and was occupying a point
about a hundred and seventy-five miles distant
beyond the long, desolate Lake Eyassi. • These
were capable of swiftly recruiting a fair force.
So I decided to go after them.
I sent a patrol northward around the lake;
while I went southward to intercept and drive
back what remained of the enemy. . . .
A film of unreality seems to hang over this
trek. Robbie and I had between us only one
full day's rations, and no change of clothing;
while the askaris, owing to the lack of supphes
at Mbulu, were not very much better off.
We travelled swiftly with an absolute mini
mum of luggage, relying on the forests and the
rarely encountered natives for supphes. Fol
lowing the very edge of the eaves of Africa, each
day brought experiences comparable with noth-
[211]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
ing in the lives of the outer world. After pass
ing a night of bitter cold on the heights where
the Jaida River rises, and being pursued the fol
lowing day for many hours by the warriors of
Tungobesch, who took us for Germanees, we
entered a very strange wilderness.
In this new wilderness, every pace seems to
mark off a hundred years until you find your
self striding through a neohthic world of tumbled
rocks and gnarled scrub, of ungainly monsters
and naked men with prognathous-like jaws,
clicking like monkeys among themselves, and
sending blunt-headed arrows after unwieldy,
large-beaked birds.
The aborigines of this district are the Watin-
dige — a tiny tribe that is rapidly vanishing, an
expiring race. Since the beginning of time no
other tribe has assimilated them, none seems to
have won their confidence. Naked, with a child
like blending of shyness and passionate boldness,
trembhng in the shadows and mists of the forest,
drifting through the glades, every quiver in the
grass to them the voice of a demon, every sough
ing in the trees above the breath of gods, their
narrow intellect gives to their hves a very small
compass. [ 212 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
God is Ishuako, the sun, and an old woman;
while Seta, the moon, is male. Tsako, the stars,
are the children of the moon, though cold and
distant, and not familiar with the shy httle chil
dren of earth. Though the passing spirit goes
to Ishuako, the prospect leaves the little hunter
cool. He throws meat east and west, and gazes
with awe at the sight of Ishuako come to earth
and resting on Mabuguru, the dim, sacred moun
tain which hung on our left flank for all a day's
march. But why is radiant Ishuako an old
woman? — And why, since the sun is God, does
the httle hunter go to his end doubled up in a
deep pit with his arrows and gourd beside him?
Again, though a child of nature, he very curi
ously maintains the strictest and. most unnatural
customs in regard to morals. An unfaithful
wife is beaten to death, or such was the custom
until recently, and this in spite of the fact that
her purchase price was only five or ten arrows
with a few beads thrown in, and the added fact
that neighbouring tribes are almost as a-moral
as animals.
A philosophic study of these people is calcu
lated tor fill one with misgiving and a profound
melancholy; and yet for them it cannot be bad
[213]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
to feel that the gods are conveniently near,
demons can be side-stepped, and heaven itself is
almost within leaping distance above. To them
the heavens seem only part of the house they hve
in. Copernicus might never have lived; and the
whole race will pass away without one fleeting
speculation on the unplumbed depths of space.
Yet, after all, what is better on earth than to
live cleanly, to fight a fair fight, and to die
bravely in the open? . . .
Each night the leaping camp fires, fighting up
groups of askaris and porters stewing messes in
their sufurias and grilling bits of game, seemed
to be swaying and struggling to hold a point be
leaguered by the dark. When the throbbing
challenge of the lion had ceased with the capture
of its prey, the brief, solemn stillness would
then be broken by the jungle chorus — the
screams and whistles of night birds, the throaty
piping of the hyrax, the mournful, distressing
wail of the hyena, the interminable shrill uproar
of the cicadas, panicky crashings in the bush;
and then, if you peered out in the encircling
darkness, the velvet canopy appeared punctured
by a hundred gleaming eyes. . . . All this was
life and joy to me; but I sometimes felt sorry
[214]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
for Robbie, sitting by his shelter tent staring out
into the thunderous dark with an unhappy and
puzzled expression in his eyes.
The terror of the jungle lies in its black
mystery and loneliness. A sentry on duty at an
isolated point in the night believes that he is
abandoned — the dark engulfs him. — Whichever
way he turns, he feels that a knife, a spear, slash
ing talons, or grinding jaws are about to be
plunged into his back, or rend him like dark
bolts of hghtning. . . .
At whatever hour the red moon rolled out of
the gloomy east, I invariably awoke without
further warning and drew myself reluctantly
from the blankets; for this was the signal that
the time to march had come. . . .
Standing for a moment shivering and chatter
ing with the intense cold of the highlands, and
looking at the prone, still figures about me, it
comes upon me with a rush that these are more
than children to me, for their health, their des
tinies, their lives are mine to guard, to direct, to
sacrifice. The askaris, marking the line of the
perimeter, sleep heads outward with arms flung
across their rifles ; the porters bundle themselves
like sacks of meal beside their piled-up loads, the
[215]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
weary sentry of the quarter-guard standing
above them sunk into his great coat, with another
sentry beyond silhouetted for an instant in the
dim red glow. I do not know what dreams I
may disperse, but in another instant my whistle
breaks the silence; and the dim shadows, with
grunts and sighs, reluctantly come to fife.
In less than three minutes, Corporal Sudi bin
Ismail reports for the advance.
"Temam, effendi!"
And Robbie is ready with the rear guard.
We move off in single file, stumbling down
a rocky declivity, through a tangled scrub forest,
and plunging forward into a mysterious dark
ness. No one speaks. It's the hour of silence, and
no other sound comes from the column than the
dry shuffle of sandals, the snapping of twigs,
and the whisper of sere grass brushing against
bare legs. Always on these marches, no matter
how solemnly the stillness works upon our
spirits, or disenchains us till we soar with the
rising moon, there is constantly a subconscious
apprehension of impending danger. And this is
no fanciful fear. . . .
During our operations on this safari, two
[ 216 ]

A Scouting Party of Meru Massai.

Rhino Killed at Sixty-one Feet When Charging. The Antics of this Blundering
Flying Into the Thorn Trees for Shelter.

3east Send the Porters

SOUTH OF SUEZ
stragghng porters were devoured by lions; five
times our lines were rushed by rhino, and once
menaced by a herd of buffalo. One messenger,
bearing important despatches, was attacked by
a leopard. We found puff adders under our
bedding and in the packs; and of a night, a
hyena, pulling at my blankets, awakened me.
Besides, there were the ever dangerous and an
noying anopheles mosquitoes, tsetse flies, and
wood ticks and jiggers, from which the least we
could expect were unhealing veldt sores. In de
tail these things are ignored, but the subcon
scious knowledge of them keeps the nerves
TtlUX. • • •
No one dares to straggle at night. At the
most unexpected moment a snorting whistle, ap
parently within four feet of the middle of each
man's back, brings the column to a breathless
halt. A sibilant murmur passes down the line:
"'Faru! 3Faru! Master!"
We stand tensely, blinded by the dark, won
dering where the blow will fall . . . and the
next moment the shadows on our flanks seem to
heave, and the great bulk of a rhino is flung
among us.
At the first charge the line dissolves before
[217]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
the beast. If he blunders away, every one
breathes more easily, and the match is resumed.
If he charges again, again the line dissolves —
and again! — and again! Ordinarily no one
dares fire, for even a rhino may be ally to the
enemy. But if the occasion warrants, httle
spurts of flame stab the dark, and the snap of
the rifles awakens strange echoes.
The antics of this blind, blundering, furious
fool are merely incidents, and often amusing.
It's no grave matter to watch naked porters
flying like squirrels into thorn trees, and after
wards very slowly and very dehcately plucking
themselves off again. The real terror of the
night is cold, intelligent, merciless.
Trudging along through the dark, crowding
bush, making no more sound than a night wind
through northern pines, marching becomes auto
matic, and the unoccupied mind begins to steal
away homeward — to Argyll, to Taplow in spar
kling June, to the Boston Post Road when the
frost-touched leaves are falling; or, perhaps, to
jungle clearings or nights in Zanzibar. . . . Sud
denly a shot snaps in the bush, a bullet swishes
like a whip above the head. Several more sing
[ 218 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
from the flank. Then comes the sickening,
damnable stutter:
"Dud! dud! dud! dud! dud! dud! dud!—"
There is a rush. Every one flings himself into
position to await a murderous charge, or to
push forward blindly past the ungauged menace ;
while, for a suffocating instant, a tumult of
thoughts and emotions sweep over the leader —
the weight of his responsibihty, the necessity for
immediate and decisive action, the horror of
failure, the first seeming impossibility of suc
cess; and then the fleeting thought, in this
savage jungle with none but black men about,
in the tomb of African night: is this the
Rendezvous? . . .
We marched under the walls of Mkalama one
day when dawn was breaking; and found the
great white-washed boma rearing its walls on
the crest of a kopje in the centre of a plain en
circled by rugged hills.
Major H — was in charge of this lonely but
powerful post, a most hospitable and kindly
man who had hunted in the Canadian Rockies
and travelled the shores of Tanganyika twenty
years ago. He gave me the latest military in-
[219]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
formation, found new porters to replace my
weary Wambulu (exhorting them from the
barasa of his citadel), and introduced some of
his provisions into my empty chop-box.
He and Major B — from Kondoa-Irangi, a
neighbouring post about a hundred and fifty
miles away, had been entertaining very gloomy
thoughts about the German menace in America.
I was able by facts and fervour to persuade them
that American ideals had no regard for race or
previous nationality, that the country was a sohd
commonwealth. "Well, it's very reassuring," said Major H —
with a clearing brow. "I'm glad to know it."
"Jolly good," said B— thankfully. "It's
splendid news."
So that settled a certain unrest in central
Africa. I was grimy and very sloppy; but the Majors
and I, lolling in long chairs, with hands crossed
comfortably on our stomachs, had a very re
freshing discussion on Tudor architecture and
interior decorations, on O. Henry and Stephen
Leacock, before I moved off the same day and
limpingly led my askaris over the hills and away
into a still more rugged wilderness.
[220]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
This wilderness was virtually waterless and
stretched away to the districts bordering the
southern tip of Victoria Nyanza. It was rich
game country, but trackless and virtually with
out' water at this season, though at other times
great floods suddenly sweep over broad ex
panses of it. We were obliged to dig for hours
in dry, sandy courses to obtain drink; while for
food I shot kongoni, wildebeest, eland, and
antelope, without stopping the column or pro
longing a single halt.
Once at dawn on the plain of the Sibiti I
shot one of the huge, black-maned hons for
which the place is famous; while two others
rose from the dust nearby and ran away hke
frightened dogs. All sorts of game hved in
the bush and along the fringes of the plain, and
wild fowl in places were as numerous as chickens
in a run.
One day at the end of a waterless march, we
halted and made a very dry bivouac in a hope
lessly sandy course. We dug for hours without
finding the shghtest evidence of moisture; our
tongues were large and our mouths had little
saliva in them. Sitting dejectedly outside the
camp, I watched a troop of baboons with rising
[ 221 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
interest. Though droll, they are dangerous if
you arouse their ill will. So I did not laugh to
offend the lumbering elders; for I find they
also are bound by laws, have their conventions,
and live up to them. The old men are rough
and surly, cynical with their women folk, and
annoyed at the chattering of the children; the
women are patient but sly, dragging the whim
pering "totoes" about, or clouting the more
lusty or mischievous youngsters j- while the
youths are forever planning intrigues under the
baleful gleam of the old men's reddening eyes,
and suffering their furious onslaughts if dis
covered. . . . However, I followed the troop,
and they brought me to a grove of palms bear
ing large, fibrous nuts filled with a substance
like rich vanilla custard, for which we were al
most as grateful as though each were a gourd
of water. . . .
Eventually we entered the Muanza district,
where the huts become high and conical and are
capped with ostrich eggs. Stockades encircle
them, and the meal is stored in vast rock caverns.
The sultani of Kitaganda came out with a
large retinue to meet me; and I held a shauri
under a baobab tree. So far the scouts and ir-
[222]

Askaris With Shirati Wives, in the Muanza District. The White Crescent Over the Askaris
Forehead Is the Tooth of a Hippo.

Shirati Wives of Kikuyu Askaris, in the Muanza District, German East
Africa.

Flying Column Entraining at Voi in Steel Carriages of the
Uganda Railway.

SOUTH OF SUEZ
regulars had brought in a number of prisoners,
and driven off foraging parties. An intelhgence
officer, scouting from Mkalama, had reported to
me that the dwindling German force had, upon
our approach, abandoned their camp and fled
northward. This hasty retreat entailed three
days' march without water, and at the end would
bring them straight into the hands of my
northern patrol.
There was nothing then for me to do but to
retrace my steps as rapidly as possible, trusting
that the Mbulu force could in the meantime cope
with the Germanees.
My men were very tired, and my foot now
in a dangerous condition. The poison had ap
parently gone into my leg, so that the pain had
spread from knee to groin; while the foot itself,
due to crude giraffe-hide sandals I had cut
with rough, parchment-like thongs, was bhstered,
raw, and filthy. Two of the askaris also had bad
feet; a great water-bhster from heel to toe
covered the foot of one, while the other, afflicted
in the same manner, had cut the swelling skin
with a sheath knife, so that the bottom of the
foot was completely raw. Neither of these
askaris said a word to me about their feet, and
£223]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
would not drop behind. At the same time I
could not let down on the pace.
The return march to a great extent was over
ground already covered. Distances, dangers,
water-holes were known in advance, and the
knowledge that the safari was moving home
ward served to enliven the column. I enjoyed,
with less anxiety, the silent mystery of the bush ;
and the glorious majesty of Ishuako, the sun.
. . . Once at the Naval arsenal in Washington,
a boy companion and myself were almost over
whelmed by the accidental overturn of a caldron
of molten magnesium bronze. It spilled about
us like sparkling burgundy. Very much like
that, the sun, tilting over the edge of the Escarp
ment, poured its red and gold into the valleys,
sending its rays splashing and scintillating
through the lifting mists. The choir of the
jungle gave it greeting, and even the askaris
sang — at dawn.
After leaving The Commissioner and the A.
P. O. at Mbulu, I covered with my men over
two hundred and sixty miles, mainly over un
mapped wilderness trails, in fourteen days,
reaching Mbulu on the evening of the last day.
I was just in time to receive a despatch from the
[ 224 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
northern patrol reporting that, with the stout A.
P. O. in charge, accompanied by ruga-rugas and
native police, it had bumped the German force
after coming around Lake Eyassi, "according to
schedule"; and there in the bush surprised and
attacked it, accounting for all in prisoners and
casualties. Accordingly I took the A. P. O.'s angular
horse, and leaving the askaris to rest at the boma,
rode out eighteen miles and met the returning
party. Both prisoners and askaris looked very
weary and forlorn. The A. P. O. saw his men
into camp, then walked a bit with me talking
over events. There was no doubt the men were
in too weak a condition to march for several
days; and since urgent despatches had come
through recalling me, I could not delay. So,
as we met on the plains, though with the saddle
reversed, the A. P. O. and I parted on the
heights. I saw his hand wave in the dark.
"Good luck!" he called. "Maybe I'll see you
in Aruscha."
"Maybe ! Good luck !" and the old horse went
stumbling along the trail. . . .
On the following morning, turning our backs
on Mbulu, we set out on the return trek to
[225]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Sanja, over a hundred and eighty miles away.
Dawn found us on the edge of the Escarpment
once more.
As the sun rose hotly over the Steppe, the
white, spreading plains, salt lake, and forests of
thorn rolled thousands of feet below us hke a
drab and worn-out carpet — measureless, water
less, dusty, and dull. But far away, almost
against the sun, a pale eminence appeared — the
rounded dome of lion-haunted Lol Kissale.
Two paths lay before us. The one to the east
was considerably shorter, but it required drag
ging my sore and tired men across a seventy-
mile stretch without water ; while the roundabout
route past Lol Kissale was mainly through
dense, unexplored thorn forest, though I judged
it offered a possibility of water.
The askaris fell in slowly and stiffly. I said
to them:
"Listen, askaris. There is no water on the
straight road. But near Lol Kissale perhaps
there is water — perhaps none. I'm not yet
sure. Nevertheless, I'm taking the long road.
Those who are sick may remain behind at
Madukani. I promise the remainder two days'
rest in Aruscha when the march is done.". . .
[226]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
The nearest askari said, "Yes. We are
ready, master." And my orderly, clicking his
heels, grinned and murmured, "Ahsanti sana.
Thank you very much, effendi. We will go
with you."
So we turned our faces away from the Land
of Mists and commenced the three-thousand-
foot plunge down to the flat, drab plain. . . .
Noon halt was at a wallow where brack
ish water oozed from the edge of a salt-en
crusted lake; but nightfall found us well in the
forest. No enchanted wood of Grimm's had half the
charm of this stretch of unexplored bush,
marked only by game trails. Its silence seemed
a sort of suspended animation which might be
aroused any moment into weird and devastating
action. What terrific forms lurked within the
forest recesses we could not tell, yet on every
hand there multiplied evidence of terrible rest
less lives. Huge wallows ; pud marks like small
wells ; fair-sized trees torn up by the roots ; path
ways as broad as country lanes ; skulls and horns
emphasising the shadows — a riot of wanton hfe
and unmourned death, bound by no laws but the
lust to conquer and the fierce determination to
[ 227 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
live. . . . And yet we saw little. The forest
seemed to hold its breath as we passed through.
Once the forest about us suddenly came to
life. For fully twenty minutes the shadows
danced with the light of grey and yellow bodies
flashing by; the trees seemed to shake with the
soft rumble of galloping hoofs; and strange
whistlings and barkings startled our ears. As
suddenly the sounds ceased; and we shuffled on
with the uncomfortable impression that a thou
sand eyes glared at us from behind the trees.
But there was drink.
Each day we found a water-hole; one, a lily-
pond, fragrant, clear, and enlivened by the pres
ence of graceful birds and beautiful antelope;
another, a round hole in the shadows, covered
with green scum through which two wicked httle
hell-divers swam restlessly. ("But then, be
careful, for if you drink of one, you will shrink
and become ugly as a toad; but if you only
taste the other. . . .") We drank impartially.
Akida bin Juma and Dongolaya could not pos
sibly have added to the homeliness of their fea
tures, and I certainly saw no improvement. Be
sides, the kilongozi, a bee-hunter whom I had
picked up for a guide, had tasted all the waters,
[ 228 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
and he assured me he had got nothing worse
than varicose veins.
Still, I suspect that kilongozi.
He was himself a forest imp,1 and had spent
forty-odd years stealing honey from the little
folk and running away from the big folk of the
forest. That forest terrified him, strangely
enough; and later, on his return journey, he
made a detour of seven days in order to escape
its dangers. Black, wiry, and naked, he was a
gibbering child of the wild. A bit of blanket
flung over his shoulder; a dirty red cap with a
bedraggled feather in it; worn-out sandals; two
long, shiny spears ; a scanty string of blue beads,
with a tiny tobacco pouch — these constituted
his entire furniture and fortune. Yet he was
merry as a child, wise as an old man, bold and
timorous as any forest creature.
When his httle old face puckered up in a
grin, disclosing his sohtary yellow tooth, the
whole line smiled; when he broke into the shrill
chatter of the Wambugwe tongue, the askaris
laughed; but when, at each halt, he squatted be
fore me to hght his improvised bark pipe, drew
huge draughts of smoke into his leathery lungs,
then burst into squeals and shrieks and splutters
[229]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
of joy, the forest was shaken by a strange ex
plosion of mirth from a hundred and forty
savages. On the third night after leaving the foot of
the Escarpment, we reached the edge of the
forest and came out upon the trail from Ufiome
which skirts the Massai Steppe and leads past
Lol Kissale. The askaris, setting foot on this
road, were jubilant; they laughed and chattered
and made up rude songs about it. This seemed
to annoy the kilongozi intensely. He became
shy and silent and excessively nervous, mutter
ing to himself and casting appealing glances
backward. I couldn't understand this at all until sud
denly towards evening he gave a low squeal,
seized me by the arm, and dragged me to one
side of the trail, his beady eyes fixed intently
on something across the veldt — a wisp of smoke.
"Master, the Massai!"
In a flash I understood. For me, the ribbon
of dust winding away meant friends at the end.
I could envision vast, bellowing ships, screaming
locomotives, and electric hghts that blink the
stars out of countenance; but for the kilongozi,
all was dark. For him every forward step
[230]

A Kikuyu Showing His Tribal Marks.

Characteristic "Kiyuks" in Front of Their Banda of
Mud-and-Thatch Where Pestilential Insects Hide.

Kikuyu Men With Their Wives Gathered for a Feast and Dance. Anklets and
Zebra and Monkey Skins.

SOUTH OF SUEZ
meant an invasion into the land of the Massai —
war on the Hamite hordes. . . . How httle he
knows! How much do I? His sons, I sup
pose, will drive motor-cars. Mine may fling
spears. . . .
Ali was first to spy Kilima Njaro, austere,
cool, lovely beyond expression, floating high
above the hot, rolling yellow veldt hke a white,
gleaming cloud projected above the drab pall
of a smoky city.
The pace quickened.
The sight revived the utterly weary men like
a cold draught. We marched all day straight
towards the towering cone ; but at night it seemed
to have receded. We marched through the
night — not having touched water since dawn —
resting only till the moon came up to light the
trail. We saw the sun rise red and hot on our
right hand, but the great mountain, veiled in
smoke from a distant burning plain and mists
from the uplands, had faded utterly from view —
fifty miles away.
This day, for the first time, I permitted the
weaker ones to lag, and pushed on with those
able to keep the pace.
The morning mists slowly lifted, and green
[231]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
and gracious Meru rose up before us, clothed
in verdure, with clouds in its motherly arms.
Famihar but heat-scintillating kopjes now ap
peared on either hand, and rolled by. We all
knew our destination, its distance, and what
awaited us there. . . . When at last we arrived,
after an unbroken forty miles of veldt, at Engare
Mtoni, the first stream that pours from the cool
shoulders of the mountain, the askaris very care
fully and deliberately bathed their wrists, their
ankles, their faces and heads. Afterwards they
sipped a mouthful of water each, and gargled
their throats. . . .
Then we bivouacked. The men bathed,
washed their worn khaki, and scraped their chins
with bits of old razors.
At three o'clock the same day we marched to
the lovely little German-Dutch village of
Aruscha, eight miles away, and entered it at
dusk when the cooling air was freshened with the
scent of roses and orange blossoms.
The Skipper was standing in front of the
crossroads store, a smile on his sun-reddened
face, a gleam of understanding in his eyes. Our
greeting was commonplace. Kombo, coming to
me with the question: "Safari mkwisha, ef-
[232]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
fendi?" and then my reply: "Yes. The march
is ended. You can rest here until you receive
orders," — was merely routine. . . . But the
Skipper upset all my complacency with a terrible
jolt. "I'm afraid you must move off to-morrow
morning," he remarked tranquilly. "The men
look pretty fresh. I'd like you to go to-night,
if possible !"
How I damned the razors, the soap, and the
fresh water of Engare Mtoni!
"I have promised the men two days' rest," I
said. "Oh! . . . Well, these are orders from
Nairobi. A troop train is waiting for us at
Sanja River railhead. We have to entrain
early in the morning on Wednesday. That
gives you only three days. The main column
has already cleared out, and I've only been wait
ing to see you."
"Is this absolutely urgent?"
"Yes. There's a transport waiting at Mom
basa to take us down the Coast." He smiled
cynically. "The whole battalion is expected to
be in action down there within a month."
"Well," I said desperately, "please don't give
[233]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
me any orders as to the time when I'm to march ;
and I'll promise to be at Sanja River at nine
o'clock on Wednesday morning."
"Righto!" said the Skipper, and mounted his
horse. . . .
I rested the askaris that night, the next day,
and until three o'clock the following morning!
Then we marched to Sanja River, and reached
the railhead in the dust of the main column.
I limped these last forty miles in a comfort
able pair of bedroom shppers, purchased from
a Greek trader. . . .
And, of course, we waited at Sanja River
two days for a train! For we had encountered
the tip of one of civilisation's antenne, and
knew that thenceforth we would move with much
bustle, and httle expedition. . . .

[234]

Unmarried Girls of the Ruanda District Gathered to Catch a Glimpse of the New Political Officer on His
First Visit to Conquered Territory.

War Dance of the Meru Massai.

Kwa Heri
MY boy came in breathlessly to announce
that the M. T. had sent a car for me,
and it was waiting with my bags already packed.
There was no longer any excuse for lingering.
So, feeling ashamed at the sight of the ill-con
cealed envy in my companions' faces as they rose
to bid me farewell, I said "Kwa heri!" all around,
and left abruptly, leaving much unsaid that I
should have hked my old comrades to under
stand. They were a pathetic group standing at
the head of the cement stairway, just out of the
glaring sun, looking after me with brooding ex
pressions. The guard was mounting as I entered the
barrack square. The askaris were rigidly at at
tention. The order "Fix!" was snapped, and
the polished steel flashed overhead in the sun
light. I slipped into the shadows of the long
veranda, skirting the square, intending to make
the gateway and pass, observed only by the
quarter-guard. [ 235 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
"Bay'nets!"The weapons rattled briskly; the soldiers
snapped rigidly back to attention and awaited
the next shouted order. It was a pretty sight,
and I felt a little glow for having done my share
in training them. At this moment the native
Sergeant-major, James, spied me out of the
corner of his all-seeing eye. He turned sharply
in my direction, saluted, and shouted across the
parade-ground: "Kwa heri, effendi! Farewell, excellency!"
Instantly every non-commissioned officer for
got his command and called to me, "Kwa heri!
Kwa heri, bwana!"
The officer of the guard tried to check the
break sharply; I called to them to stand; but it
was too late. The askaris held their alignment
instinctively, but the N. C. O.'s came trotting
across the square, while the askaris shouted mes
sages of farewell and good luck, and the white
officer in command, yielding tactfully, saluted
me from his position, grinning broadly. My old
comrades, black but true, my children who had
shared many strange vicissitudes with me,
pressed about, seizing my hands, asking Allalh to
travel with me and bring me back again. I
[236]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
talked to them, bade "Kwa heri" to them all, with
a word for those who would never stand on
parade again, and passed out. But at the gate,
Sergeant Juma bin Kombo, stupid, gentle,
doggedly courageous Juma, turned out the
guard, gave me the general salute, and almost
wept over my hands.
I climbed into the car, with the white corporal
in charge looking at me curiously, and rolled
away in a cloud of dust, yet wrapped in
glory! . . .
By evening I found myself leaning over the
shoreward rail of a listing, limping, war-worn
trooper, one of a heterogeneous mob of madmen
who maintained their composure under a mask
of cynical amusement. Homeward bound!
The sick, the inefficient, the ambitious, — broken,
battered, burned, with bare legs and much-
patched khaki, — some were destined to continue
the exhausting fight in the bush southward in-
Portuguese East Africa, some were on their way
to France and happy at the change, some hoped
to recuperate in the Union, and a few were
bound for England on leave.
All this I knew, for the job of adjutant had
been wished upon me. While I was busy
[ 237 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
chivvying a suitable Sergeant-major to share the
burden of my woes, all Africa was dumped upon
the decks and in the holds, all Africa and its
household furniture. Yelling, singing, cursing,
with bugles blowing, winches roaring, and whis
tles piping shrilly, laughing, grunting, a tor
rent of black and white and yellow came up out
of barges, over the sides, and spread about the
ship. At midnight we clanked out of harbour.
The exhausted mob simmered into silence.
Order settled over the ship; and the sentries
took their posts with their habitual expres
sions of stoical indifference and internal bitter
ness. My work done, I crept on deck apologetically,
and hid myself in a dark corner from which I
could see the shore fading with the waning moon.
Here calmness came over me, and I thought with
a tinge of melancholy of the friends I had
left stewing and simmering in the thankless
tropics; regrets formed in my heart, memories
crowded about me, faces appeared in the dark
ness. Suddenly there were voices at my side,
and I found myself surrounded by old friends
of the bush, bound for Durban, in South Africa.
[238]

SOUTH OF SUEZ
Our greetings were simple but profane. . . .
We left the bottle-necked and bloody Port-
of -Peace (Dar-es-Salaam) over our stern; we
raised and passed the scarred and pestilential
slopes of Lindi, twinkling prettily above its
opalescent waters, like a courtesan covering its
venal nature with a smirk; we came to Mozam
bique, gleaming hke a crusted gem upon the blue
waters; and we ran into a bit of scrub-lined
beach called Lombo, where several dhows were
brought alongside into which two companies
of black troops with their boyish white officers
tumbled. The blacks poured over the side, grinning and
chanting, while the open dhows took them to the
thin line of beach, whence they plunged straight
into the bush and disappeared. That is my last
impression of the Coast — the black troops clam
bering down our rusty sides, leaping into the
mild surf of a tropic shore, disappearing into
the bush to fight, and the white boys in command
turning at the last moment to wave farewell,
torn between the dignity of their command, the
uncertainty of the inscrutable future, the reluc
tance of parting, and the necessity for haste,
calhng back faintly to us:
[ 239 ]

SOUTH OF SUEZ.
"Kwa heri, you lucky beggars 1 Kwa heri!"
The old ship clanked seaward again and
swung southward, where stood the gates of civ
ilisation and the Cape of Good Hope.

[240]

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