Upon this they
began to quake, and, parleying with Said, begged for mercy, and said
they would go immediately if the powder was not used against them. Said
took them at their word, and they ran off. They had already, however,
carried away about nine pounds of tea, packed in tin boxes. It is
probable they mistook these boxes of tin for silver, or considered their
contents to be money, gold and silver, although their lightness should
have undeceived them. As the Arabic Bibles and Testaments were packed up
with the tea, they carried off a Bible with them. But this they
afterwards dropped on the road, and it was picked up by a shepherdess,
and brought to me. They also took away a pewter dish and two bags of
grounded ghaseb, besides ripping open the bags of the blacks. This
appears to be the amount of the robbery and devastation; very fortunate
are we it was not worse. We had watched many nights, and had often
loaded our guns; but this night, when the thieves came, we were
miserably unprepared to receive them. The Germans had been cleaning
their guns, and all were unloaded. Overweg had his fowling-piece charged
with small shot. At length we got two or three guns in trim, and our
servants followed the robbers, but nothing of them was to be seen. The
cowards had fled at the first show of resistance. In the morning, on
searching through the small valley up which they had come, we were
surprised to find marks of no less than thirteen camels--enough to carry
away all our goods.
Pages:
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315