PART 3
FOOL-HARDY BRAVERY
March 31.
We avoided the bivouac of March 24 and came close to the bivouac of
March 23.
Our marching column had increased now almost to double what it had been
before, from the quantity of livestock that had been taken, and captive
women and children. The Ras did not have the spirit to force his
soldiers to give up their booty.
Our soldiers were in a state of bliss: donkeys carried reserve
provisions, relieving their masters of this heavy burden which they
otherwise would have had to carry on their heads. Captive boys carried
guns and shields or drove cattle which had been taken. And captive
women, quickly submitting to their fate, already went for water, tore up
grass for mules and ground meal. My boys also got several donkeys for
themselves and grieved that they had not succeeded in capturing a Negro
woman who would relieve them of the necessity of grinding meal
themselves.
Vaska [three-year-old Ethiopian boy, mutilated and left to die by tribal
enemies, found and nursed back to health by Bulatovich, who eventually
took him home to Russia and raised him there] gradually got better. They
carried him in their arms during the march. He is a remarkably
intelligent boy and already knew my name and Zelepukin's, and could
already ask for food and drink, etc., in Russian.
We hunted for elephants and wounded several of them, but the elephants
got away.
April 3.
At two o'clock in the morning we got up and, orienting ourselves by
compass, moved farther on. Having avoided the thickets, the arrived at
the grassy steppe before sunrise.
At six o'clock in the morning we stumbled upon a lion and killed it. The
vanguard saw it when it was quietly going away from the approaching
detachment. They notified the Ras of this, and we began to rush so as to
cross its path. The Ras shot at the lion first. Then others. The lion
fell, turning its head toward us. It was still alive. Several
Abyssinians came galloping up to it and killed it with sabers.
The sun soon rose and lit up the mountains which rise along the Kibish
River. We set out to the familiar summit, near which we had set up camp
on March 20. The way there still seemed very long. It became hot. The
water we had taken with us was all drunk up by nightfall. Our column
spread out, and the weaker began to fall behind. First the captive women
and children began to fall and die. There was no one to pick them up,
and they were thrown on the deserted steppe, since whoever could rushed
with all his strength to water.
At about ten o'clock in the morning, we saw a herd of giraffe at about a
verst [two thirds of a mile] from the detachment, and the Ras still had
the endurance to hunt them. Accompanied by several officers, he galloped
after them. But the hunt was unsuccessful: horses, stepping in cracks in
the soil, fell. My friend Ato-Bayu broke his collar-bone this way, and I
made him a bandage, using for this his long belt.*
At about twelve noon the vanguard horsemen reached the river and having
drunk and gotten as much water as they could, galloped back to help
their comrades on foot. Only at four o'clock in the afternoon did the
detachment assemble. We had lost from sun stroke four Abyssinians and
two Galla. About a hundred captives had been left behind. Zelepukin, who
went with the transport in the middle of the column, had seen all kinds
of horrors during the march and arrived very downcast.
"How awfully pitiful it is to look at the captive Shankala (Shankala is
"Negro" in Abyssinian), your Honor," he said. "They walk, then stagger,
then fall and lie. The master lifts her, beats her, but already,
evidently, she has no strength left. He can't pick her up, so he throws
her aside and leaves."
The temperature at noon was 32o Reaumur [104o F] in the shade.
Biniam
Arlington, Varginia, USA