ABSTRACT
First thing next morning we set to work to unload the 300 tons of stores. The Somali worked well, with great energy and much noise ; but their muscles proved weaker than their will or their voice. The Turks, on the other hand, were quiet and sluggish but immensely strong, and most of the heavy work had to be left to them. The Somali, however, made up in numbers and enthusiasm for their individual weakness, so between the two contingents of men the transhipment of the goods into dhows was finished early in the afternoon. We said farewell to our kind friends on board the Maldat and followed the men ashore. We landed close by the custom-house ; the men paraded in the square in front of the old Portuguese fort (see PI. II.), and then, under the guidance of one of Mr. Rogers's Askari, marched to a cocoa-nut grove about a mile to the west of the town. There camp was pitched around a bungalow in a hollow in the sandhills, near some brackish wells upon the shore. During the morning the Juba¡ a small steamer belonging to the Sultan of Zanzibar, called in on its way to Kismayu. So our chief seized the opportunity, and hastily made an agreement with one of the leading Hindu traders of Lamu for the supply of 11 o camels and 40 donkeys. The trader’s agent left at once in the Juba to purchase them. The price agreed on was a very high one. But the contract stipulated that they were all to be delivered in Lamu in a month’s time, and it was verbally promised that they should be landed in three weeks.
