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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I. CAIBO TO MASSOWAH. Suez—The Voyage—Jeddah—Suakin—Hassowah—Difficulties and Suspicions. On the 17th of October, 1887, her Majesty's Government decided to entrust to me the honour of taking a mission into Abyssinia, to attempt to bring about a pacification between King John and the Italians, it being impressed upon me at the same time that there was not a moment to be lost, as the favourable season for warlike operations was already commencing, and the Italian Government could not undertake to refrain from acts of overt hostility for more than five weeks, i.e. till the end of November, even though I should not have returned by that time. As there was no shipsailing for Massowah before the 21st of October, it would be impossible to arrive there before the 29th or 30th; this would leave me about four weeks in which to equip and organize a caravan, to make the journey to the king wherever he might be, to exchange visits of ceremony and to conduct the negotiations to a conclusion, to make the return journey, and to arrive at the Italian camp. It was easy to see that this would probably be an absolute impossibility; but I was too much delighted with the prospect of the mission and the journey to make any remonstrance, and all that could be done was to hurry on preparations for departure with almost feverish haste and activity. My first step was to ask permission to take with me Mr. Beech, A.V.S., then serving in the Egyptian army, whom, of all my acquaintances in Egypt, I considered to be the best adapted for the sort of work which lay before us. Throughout our expedition I never ceased to congratulate myself on my good fortune in having secured his invaluable assistance and companionship. I then engaged the services of an interpreter, named Ahmed Fehmy, a most respec...
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