The plantation managers and overseers had all retreated to Matafele, only one (I understand) remaining at his post.

The whole German colony was thus collected in one spot, and could count and wonder at its scanty numbers.

Knappe declares (to my surprise) that the war-ships could not spare him more than fifty men a day.

The great extension of the German quarter, he goes on, did not "allow a full occupation of the outer line"; hence they had shrunk into the western end by the firm buildings, and the inhabitants were warned to fall back on this position, in the case of an alert.

So that he who had set forth, a day or so before, to disarm the Mataafas in the open field, now found his resources scarce adequate to garrison the buildings of the firm.