480 LETTERS TO DR. SCHWEINFURTH.

Finally, on March 31, I was rejoiced to hear that three officers from Amadi, with about 260 men, had arrived safely at Wandi in Makraka. The troops recalled three months ago from Monbuttu had also reached Makraka at the very last moment, after their commander had put off the march, under all sorts of empty pretences, but really in consequence of letters sent to him by the rebels on the Bahr-el-Ghazal, urging him to wait for the course of events. Certainly the incapacity, and often the downright malevolence, of our own officials have played a great part in all the misfortunes that have hitherto befallen us. Disobedience is the order of the day, and every one seeks to protect his own interests only.

On April 1 the civil and military officers in Ladé handed me a document, wherein they petitioned that all the stations in the south should be given up, and that we should restrict ourselves to the line from Lado to Kiri. Suicidal as such a suggestion was, for we should then be confined to the most unfruitful part of the province, and consequently throw ourselves into the jaws of famine, besides cutting ourselves off from the only way of retreat which would at last be open to us—unfortunate as this motion was, persuasion would have effected little, and so I had to give at least an apparent consent, and issue the necessary orders.

According to the last news that has reached us, the Danagla had sent off skirmishing parties to within two days’ march of Lado, in order to incite the Negroes against us, and had then concentrated themselves in Amadi. Letters also arrived from Keremallah and Osman Effendi on April 3. ‘The first, a sot-disant official despatch, told me of the events that had taken place in and around Amadi, said that the garrison, though summoned five times to surrender, had refused, that then the siege was commenced, and that finally the soldiers had forced their way through, and had taken the road to Makraké. Murjan Aga, the commander of Amadi, accompanied by the lieutenant Rabih Aga, had been overtaken on the way, and both had been slain, their heads being taken to Amadi. More than two hundred deserters, Dragomans, basinger, &c., were in Amadi, besides many soldiers and officers. The letter concluded with a summons to appear at