TO EFFUENTA, CROCKERVILLE, AND THE AJI BIPA HILL.
At Tumento the halt of a day (March 22) was necessary in order to hire carriers and get ready for the march eastward. Here, too, I washed sundry specimens of soft earth from various parts of the river-banks, finding colour of gold in all except the grey clay. Our Mohammedan friends were there; the eldest called upon me and was exceedingly civil, besides being to a certain extent useful. For the hire of a shilling and two cakes of Cavendish he found me eggs in a village some three miles off, and he ended by writing me a 'safy,' which would bring me good luck in all my undertakings. It consists of the usual Koranic quotations in black, and of magic numbers in pink, ink.
Dr. Roulston and Mr. Higgins, the new District Commissioner for Tákwá, entered Tumento about 3 P.M. The carriers hired in addition to my canoe-men would now be wanted, said the cunning old chief, for the 'Government man,' with whom he wished to stand well. As the porters had received an advance of pay I objected to this proceeding. The fresh arrivals had to find other hands, and were not very successful in the search. Their detachment of twenty-five Haussa soldiers, who had escorted to the coast Dr. Duke, the acting commissioner lately invalided, were sent abroad in all directions to act press-gang, and the natural lawlessness of the race came out strong. The force is injured by enlisting 'Haussas' who are not Haussa at all; merely semi-savage and half-pagan slaves. On detached duty they get quite out of hand; and they by no means serve to make our Government popular. By the rules of the force they should never be absent from head-quarters for more than six months; their transport costs next to nothing, as they march by bush-paths. And yet they are kept for years on outpost-duty, where it would require a Glover to discipline them and to make them steady soldiers. They live by plunder. A private on a shilling a day will eat three fowls, each worth 9_d_. to 10_d_., and drink any taken amount of palm-wine. There are no means of punishment, or even of securing a criminal; the colony cannot afford irons or handcuffs; there is no prison, and a Haussa, placed under arrest in a bamboo-hut, cuts his way out as easily as a rat from a bird-cage.