"
"Have you been to your Basha?" I asked the headman.
"I went bearing a gift in my hand, O Highly Favoured," replied the
headman, "and he answered me, 'Foolish farmer, shall I bring the Sultan to
visit me by interfering with these rebels against Allah who have taken the
protection from Nazarenes?' And then he cursed me and drove me forth from
his presence. But if you will give protection to us also we will face
these misbegotten ones, and there shall be none to come between us."
[Illustration: A VILLAGE AT DUKALA]
I could do no more than deliver messages of consolation to the poor
tribesmen, who sat in a semicircle, patient in the quivering heat. The old
story of goodwill and inability had to be told again, and I never saw men
more dejected. At the moment of leave-taking, however, I remembered that
we had some empty mineral-water bottles and a large collection of
gunmaker's circulars, that had been used as padding for a case of
cartridges. So I distributed the circulars and empty bottles among the
protection hunters, and they received them with wonder and delight. When I
turned to take a last look round, the pages that had pictures of guns
were being passed reverently from hand to hand; to outward seeming the
farmers had forgotten their trouble.
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