'Memoirs and Recollections of An Officer of the Indian Political Service' [‎21r] (41/156)

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defences were always poor, its approaches open to attack; its guards,
other than native police, non-existent.
The strain of the present situation upon the British Minister and his
tiny staff consisting of no more than a Secretary, Consul, two
Military Attaches and four or five assistants, is tremendous.
It is a year now since Sir Sidney Barton was asked to postpone his
much needed leave by the apprehensions of the Foreign Office in London.
For seven months, he has shouldered great responsibility; he has
been faced by difficulties, unknown and happily unguessed by the
British public at home. At the end of it all he has had two thousand
British and European subjects thrust upon his hands. Beyond all his
other difficulties and problems he has in his care the lives of two
thousand men, women and children - lives preserved from the hands of
a drunken armed Abyssinian rabble by barbed wire fences and one hundred
and fifty Indian rifles."
I do not think we could have had a better testimonial than this one written about us
by this young British journalist.