The Ba-Gadabursi were quiet for a week after this; and then, on another morning, a runner came to report that they were again coming in, in force, this time on foot. Our ponies had all been knocked up by scouting for hill raiders in the Selei direction on the previous day, so we called our available men out on foot. M⸺ took command of the fifteen dismounted policemen, while I collected my own sepoys and an Infantry guard which was then stationed at Bulhár; they amounted to about thirty rank and file, all belonging to the Bombay Infantry. While the Ba-Gadabursi were still quite a thousand yards away, M⸺, having drawn up the police along the sea-shore, gave the signal which we had agreed upon, firing two volleys at the distant line of a few hundred natives. They bolted at once, and I had a running skirmish with them for half an hour over two or three miles of grassy plain, after which we lost touch of them altogether. We found, however, some fifteen men hiding in the grass or diving about in the surf, and one wounded man, and brought them all in, with a collection of some thirty spears which had been thrown away in the retreat. Most of these were given back next day.
There was a lull after this, but on the following day half a dozen elders of the offending tribe came in and called upon M⸺, and we held a council with them outside his quarters, a large crowd of spectators coming from Bulhár village to look on. The elders, led by Warsama Dugál, explained that they had no quarrel with the Government, but only with the Boho. Their young men had, however, been boasting a good deal, not seeing why they should be kept out of Bulhár, saying that they didn’t care for the Government, and would go in and burn the town. The elders had then given them Punch’s advice, “Don’t,” but they had not listened to it. “Now,” said the elders to M⸺, “you have fired upon our boys; that was bad of you, but next time they will listen to our advice.” After we had shaken hands cordially with them, for they were all personally known to us, they rode away to Eil Sheikh. The wounded man, who had only received a bullet through the foot, was put under medical treatment, and in a few days limped out to his tribe. Soon after the second skirmish M⸺ brought the Boho and Ba-Gadabursi to a settlement, only to break out again some months later.