Chapter III: Expedition to Mandara (2)

The whole of this scene was repeated to Barca Gana in his tent in the evening, and they all exclaimed “Wonderful! Wonderful!” and as I did not contradict any part of his account, the fighi thus addressed me: “Rais, you have seen a miracle! I will show you hundreds, performed alone by the words of the wonderful book! You have a book also, you say, but it must be false.—Why? Because it says nothing of Saidna Mohammed, that is enough.—_Shed! Shed!_ turn! turn! say ‘God is God, and Mohammed is his prophet.’ Sully (wash), and become clean, and paradise is open to you: without this, what can save you from eternal fire? Nothing!—Oh! I shall see you while sitting in the third heaven, in the midst of the flames, crying out to your friend Barca Gana and myself, ‘_Malem, saherbi!_ (friend), give me a drink or a drop of water!’ but the gulf will be between us, and then it will be too late.” The Malem’s tears flowed in abundance during this harangue, and every body appeared affected by his eloquence.

I felt myself, at this period, extremely uncomfortable; and Barca Gana, who saw my distress, called me into the inner tent, where nobody accompanied him, except by invitation. “The fighi,” said he, “is a _rajal alem_ (clever man).” “Very likely,” said I; “but he surely might leave me to my own belief, as I leave him to his.” “_Staffer Allah!_” (God forbid!) said he. “Do not compare them.” “I do not,” said I, “God knows; but you, Kashella, should protect me from such repeated annoyances.” “No,” replied Barca, “in this I cannot interfere. Malem is a holy man. Please God! you will be enlightened, and I know the sheikh wishes it; he likes you, and would you stay amongst us, he would give you fifty slaves of great beauty, build you a house like his son’s, and give you wives from the families of any of his subjects you choose!” “Were you to return to England with me, Kashella, as you sometimes talk about, with the sheikh’s permission, would it not be disgraceful for you to turn Christian, and remain? Were I to do as you would have me, how should I answer to my sultan who sent me?” “God forbid!” said he; “you are comparing our faiths again. I propose to you eternal paradise, while you would bring me to ——.” “Not a word more,” said I.—“Good night!” “Peace be with you! I hope we shall always be friends,” said he. “Please God!” returned I. “Amen!” said the kashella.

This night we had a more dreadful storm than I ever remember being out in. The top of my Egyptian tent, which I had preferred bringing on account of its portability, was carried completely off, and the pole broken. The brightness of the lightning rendered it more like noon than midnight: a tamarind-tree was torn up by its roots in the valley near us; huge masses of stone rolled down the sides of the mountain; and I crept into a corner of Barca Gana’s outer tent, where slept his guard; and, although every rag about me was drenched with water, I was in a short time insensible to the storm which raged around me.

In the morning, however, I suffered considerably from pains in all my limbs and head. The Arabs, also, were full of complaints, and extremely dissatisfied with their situation; they loudly exclaimed against their delay. They had, for days, eaten nothing but a little flour and water, without fat: the sultan of Mandara would grant them no supply, and they demanded of Boo-Khaloom to go on, or turn back. The rain again fell in torrents, which is an Arab’s greatest dread, and they assembled round Boo-Khaloom’s tent, almost in a state of mutiny. Boo-Khaloom himself was excessively ill, more, I believe, from vexation than sickness. He had a long interview with the sultan, and returned very much irritated: he merely told me, as he passed, “that we should move in the evening;” and when I asked, “if every thing went well?” he merely answered, “_In shallah!_” (please God). The Arabs, from whom he kept his destination a secret, received him with cheers. Whom they were going against they cared but little, so long as there was a prospect of plunder, and the whole camp became a busy scene of preparation.

Two hours after noon we commenced our march through a beautiful valley to the east of Mora, winding round the hills which overhang the town, and penetrating into the heart of the mass of mountains nearly to the south of it. About sunset we halted in a very picturesque spot, called Hairey, surrounded by a superb amphitheatre of hills. Barca Gana’s tent was pitched under the shade of one side of an immense tree, called gubberah, much resembling a fig-tree, although wanting its delicious fruit; and the remnants of my tent, which had been mended by his people, and now stood about three feet from the ground, were placed on the opposite side. The trunks of these trees commonly measure ten and twelve yards in circumference near the root, and I have seen them covering more than half an acre of ground with their wide-spreading branches.

_J. & C. Walker Sculp._

PASS OF HAIRY in the _Mandara Mountains_.

_Published as the Act directs Feby. 1826, by John Murray Albemarle St. London._]

Soon after our arrival, the sultan’s trumpets announced his approach, and he took up his station, at no great distance, under a tree of the same kind: he never used a tent, but slept in an open space, surrounded by his eunuchs. At Hairey are the remains of a Mandara town, long since destroyed by the Felatahs; parts of the mud walls were still standing, and under shelter of these the troops bivouacked. The scorpions, however, made their appearance in the course of the night in great numbers, and several men were stung by them: on hearing the disturbance, and learning the cause, I called my negro, and, striking a light, we killed three in my tent; one of them was full six inches in length, of the black kind, exactly resembling those I had seen in Tripoli.

In consequence of Boo-Khaloom’s illness, it was after daylight when we broke up from our encampment, and probably the mountain scenery, by which we were surrounded, could scarcely be exceeded in beauty and richness. On all sides the apparently interminable chain of hills closed upon our view: in rugged magnificence, and gigantic grandeur, though not to be compared with the Higher Alps, the Apennines, the Jura, or even the Sierra Morena, in magnitude, yet by none of these were they surpassed in picturesque interest. The lofty peaks of Vahmy, Savah, Joggiday, Munday, Vayah, Moyung, and Memay, with clustering villages on their stony sides, appeared to the east and west of us; while Horza, exceeding any of her sister hills in height, as well as in beauty, appeared before us to the south, with its chasm or break through which we were to pass; and the winding rugged path we were about to tread was discernible in the distance. The valley in which I stood had an elevation superior to that of any part of the kingdom of Bornou, for we had gradually ascended ever since quitting Kouka; it was in shape resembling a large pentagon, and conveyed strongly the idea of its having been the bed or basin of some ancient lake, for the disappearance of which all hypothesis would be vain and useless. There were the marks of many outlets, some long and narrow fissures, through which the waters might have broken; the channel by which we had entered appearing most likely to have carried off its contents.

On proceeding through the pass of Horza, where the ascent continued, its perpendicular sides exceeding two thousand five hundred feet in height, hung over our heads with a projection almost frightful; the width of the valley did not exceed five hundred yards, and the salient and re-entering angles so perfectly corresponded, that one could almost imagine, if a similar convulsion of nature to that which separated were to bring its sides again together, they would unite, and leave no traces of their ever having been disjoined.

It was long after mid-day when we came to the mountain stream called Mikwa, and it afforded an indescribable relief to our almost famished horses and ourselves: the road, after quitting the Horza pass, had been through an extensive and thickly-planted valley, where the tree gubberah, the tamarind, a gigantic wild fig, and the mangoe (called by the Mandaras _ungerengera_, and _comonah_ by the Bornouese), flourished in great numbers and beauty. This was the first spot I had seen in Africa where Nature seemed at all to have revelled in giving life to the vegetable kingdom; the leaves presented a bright luxuriant verdure, and flowers, from a profusion of climbing parasitical plants, winding round the trunks of the trees, left the imagination in doubt as to which of them the fair aromatic blossoms that perfumed the air were indebted for their nourishment. The ground had frequent irregularities; and broken masses of granite, ten and twelve feet in height, were lying in several places, but nearly obscured by the thick underwood growing round them, and by the trees, which had sprung up out of their crevices. The nearest part of the hills, to which these blocks could have originally belonged, was distant nearly two miles.

When the animals had drunk we again moved on, and after eighteen miles of equally verdant country, more thickly wooded, we came, after sunset, to another stream, near some low hills, called Makkeray, where we were to halt for a few hours to refresh, and then move again, so as to commence an attack on the Felatahs, who were said to be only about sixteen miles distant, with the morning sun.

Our supper, this night, which indeed was also our breakfast, consisted of a little parched corn pounded and mixed with water, the only food we had seen since leaving Mora. Nothing could look more like fighting than the preparations of these Bornou warriors, although nothing could well be more unlike it than the proof they gave on the morrow. The closely-linked iron jackets of the chiefs were all put on, and the sound of their clumsy and ill-shapen hammers, heard at intervals during the night, told the employment of the greater part of their followers.

About midnight the signal was given to advance. The moon, which was in her third quarter, afforded us a clear and beautiful light, while we moved on silently, and in good order, the sultan of Mandara’s force marching in parallel columns to our own, and on our right. At dawn, the whole army halted to sully: my own faith also taught me a morning prayer, as well as that of a Musselman, though but too often neglected.

As the day broke on the morning of the 28th of April, a most interesting scene presented itself. The sultan of Mandara was close on our flank, mounted on a very beautiful cream-coloured horse, with several large red marks about him, and followed by his six favourite eunuchs, and thirty of his sons, all being finely dressed, and mounted on really superb horses; besides which, they had each from five to six others, led by as many negroes: the sultan had at least twelve. Barca Gana’s people all wore their red scarfs, or bornouses, over their steel jackets, and the whole had a very fine effect. I took my position at his right hand, and at a spot called Duggur we entered a very thick wood, in two columns, at the end of which it was said we were to find the enemy.

During the latter part of the night, while riding on in front with Maramy, the sheikh’s negro, who had accompanied me from Kouka, and who appeared to attach himself more closely to me as we approached danger, we had started several animals of the leopard species, who ran from us so swiftly, twisting their long tails in the air, as to prevent our getting near them. We, however, now started one of a larger kind, which Maramy assured me was so satiated with the blood of a negro, whose carcass we found lying in the wood, that he would be easily killed. I rode up to the spot just as a Shouaa had planted the first spear in him, which passed through the neck, a little above the shoulder, and came down between the animal’s legs; he rolled over, broke the spear, and bounded off with the lower half in his body. Another Shouaa galloped up within two arms’ length, and thrust a second through his loins; and the savage animal, with a woful howl, was in the act of springing on his pursuer, when an Arab shot him through the head with a ball, which killed him on the spot. It was a male panther (zazerma) of a very large size, and measured, from the point of the tail to the nose, eight feet two inches; the skin was yellow, and beautifully marked with orbicular spots on the upper part of the body, while underneath, and at the throat, the spots were oblong and irregular, intermixed with white. These animals are found in great numbers in the woods bordering on Mandara: there are also leopards, the skins of which I saw, but not in great numbers. The panthers are as insidious as they are cruel; they will not attack any thing that is likely to make resistance, but have been known to watch a child for hours, while near the protection of huts or people. It will often spring on a grown person, male or female, while carrying a burthen, but always from behind: the flesh of a child or of a young kid it will sometimes devour, but when any full-grown animal falls a prey to its ferocity, it sucks the blood alone.

A range of minor hills, of more recent formation than the granite chain from which they emanate (which I cannot but suppose to form a part of El Gibel Gumhr, or Mountains of the Moon), approaches quite to the skirts of the extensive wood through which we were passing; and numerous deep ravines, and dry water-courses, rendered the passage tedious and difficult. On emerging from the wood, the large Felatah town of Dirkulla was perceivable, and the Arabs were formed in front, headed by Boo-Khaloom: they were flanked on each side by a large body of cavalry; and, as they moved on, shouting the Arab war-cry, which is very inspiring, I thought I could perceive a smile pass between Barca Gana and his chiefs, at Boo-Khaloom’s expense. Dirkulla was quickly burnt, and another smaller town near it; and the few inhabitants that were found in them, who were chiefly infants, and aged persons unable to escape, were put to death without mercy, or thrown into the flames.

We now came to a third town, in a situation capable of being defended against assailants ten times as numerous as the besieged: this town was called Musfeia. It was built on a rising ground between two low hills at the base of others, forming part of the mass of the Mandara mountains: a dry wadey extended along the front; beyond the wadey a swamp; between this and the wood the road was crossed by a deep ravine, which was not passable for more than two or three horses at a time. The Felatahs had carried a very strong fence of palisades, well pointed, and fastened together with thongs of raw hide, six feet in height, from one hill to the other, and had placed their bowmen behind the palisades, and on the rising ground, with the wadey before them; their horse were all under cover of the hills and the town:—this was a strong position. The Arabs, however, moved on with great gallantry, without any support or co-operation from the Bornou or Mandara troops, and notwithstanding the showers of arrows, some poisoned, which were poured on them from behind the palisades, Boo-Khaloom, with his handful of Arabs, carried them in about half an hour, and dashed on, driving the Felatahs up the sides of the hills. The women were every where seen supplying their protectors with fresh arrows during this struggle; and when they retreated to the hills, still shooting on their pursuers, the women assisted by rolling down huge masses of the rock, previously undermined for the purpose, which killed several of the Arabs, and wounded others. Barca Gana, and about one hundred of the Bornou spearmen, now supported Boo-Khaloom, and pierced through and through some fifty unfortunates who were left wounded near the stakes. I rode by his side as he pushed on quite into the town, and a very desperate skirmish took place between Barca Gana’s people and a small body of the Felatahs. These warriors throw the spear with great dexterity; and three times I saw the man transfixed to the earth who was dismounted for the purpose of firing the town, and as often were those who rushed forward for that purpose sacrificed for their temerity, by the Felatahs. Barca Gana, whose muscular arm was almost gigantic, threw eight spears, which all told, some of them at a distance of thirty or thirty-five yards, and one particularly on a Felatah chief, who with his own hand had brought four to the ground.

· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · “Incidet ictus,

Ingens ad terram duplicato poplite Turnus.”

Had either the Mandara or the sheikh’s troops now moved up boldly, notwithstanding the defence these people made, and the reinforcements which showed themselves to the south-west, they must have carried the town with the heights overlooking it, along which the Arabs were driving the Felatahs by the terror their miserable guns excited; but, instead of this, they still kept on the other side of the wadey, out of reach of the arrows.

Engraved by E. Finden.

ATTACK ON MUSFEIA.

_Published Feb. 1826, by John Murray, London._]

The Felatahs seeing their backwardness, now made an attack in their turn: the arrows fell so thick that there was no standing against them, and the Arabs gave way. The Felatah horse now came on; and had not the little band round Barca Gana, and Boo-Khaloom, with a few of his mounted Arabs, given them a very spirited check, not one of us would probably have lived to see the following day: as it was, Barca Gana had three horses hit under him, two of which died almost immediately, the arrows being poisoned, and poor Boo-Khaloom’s horse and himself received their death-wounds by arrows of the same description. My horse was badly wounded in the neck, just above the shoulder, and in the near hind leg: an arrow had struck me in the face as it passed, merely drawing the blood, and I had two sticking in my bornouse. The Arabs had suffered terribly; most of them had two or three wounds, and one dropped near me with five sticking in his head alone: two of Boo-Khaloom’s slaves were killed also, near his person.

No sooner did the Mandara and Bornou troops see the defeat of the Arabs, than they, one and all, took to flight in the most dastardly manner, without having once been exposed to the arrows of the enemy, and in the utmost confusion. The sultan of Mandara led the way, who was prepared to take advantage of whatever plunder the success of the Arabs might throw in his way, but no less determined to leave the field the moment the fortune of the day appeared to be against them.

I now for the first time, as I saw Barca Gana on a fresh horse, lamented my own folly in so exposing myself, badly prepared as I was for accidents. If either of my horse’s wounds were from poisoned arrows, I felt that nothing could save me: however there was not much time for reflection; we instantly became a flying mass, and plunged, in the greatest disorder, into that wood we had but a few hours before moved through with order, and very different feelings. I had got a little to the westward of Barca Gana, in the confusion which took place on our passing the ravine which had been left just in our rear, and where upwards of one hundred of the Bornowy were speared by the Felatahs, and was following at a round gallop the steps of one of the Mandara eunuchs, who, I observed, kept a good look out, his head being constantly turned over his left shoulder, with a face expressive of the greatest dismay—when the cries behind, of the Felatah horse pursuing, made us both quicken our paces. The spur, however, had the effect of incapacitating my beast altogether, as the arrow, I found afterwards, had reached the shoulder-bone, and in passing over some rough ground, he stumbled and fell. Almost before I was on my legs, the Felatahs were upon me; I had, however, kept hold of the bridle, and seizing a pistol from the holsters, I presented it at two of these ferocious savages, who were pressing me with their spears: they instantly went off; but another who came on me more boldly, just as I was endeavouring to mount, received the contents somewhere in his left shoulder, and again I was enabled to place my foot in the stirrup. Remounted, I again pushed my retreat; I had not, however, proceeded many hundred yards, when my horse again came down, with such violence as to throw me against a tree at a considerable distance; and alarmed at the horses behind him, he quickly got up and escaped, leaving me on foot and unarmed.

The eunuch and his four followers were here butchered, after a very slight resistance, and stripped within a few yards of me: their cries were dreadful; and even now the feelings of that moment are fresh in my memory: my hopes of life were too faint to deserve the name. I was almost instantly surrounded, and incapable of making the least resistance, as I was unarmed—was as speedily stripped, and whilst attempting first to save my shirt and then my trowsers, I was thrown on the ground. My pursuers made several thrusts at me with their spears, that badly wounded my hands in two places, and slightly my body, just under my ribs on the right side: indeed, I saw nothing before me but the same cruel death I had seen unmercifully inflicted on the few who had fallen into the power of those who now had possession of me; and they were alone prevented from murdering me, in the first instance, I am persuaded, by the fear of injuring the value of my clothes, which appeared to them a rich booty—but it was otherwise ordained.

My shirt was now absolutely torn off my back, and I was left perfectly naked. When my plunderers began to quarrel for the spoil, the idea of escape came like lightning across my mind, and without a moment’s hesitation or reflection I crept under the belly of the horse nearest me, and started as fast as my legs could carry me for the thickest part of the wood: two of the Felatahs followed, and I ran on to the eastward, knowing that our stragglers would be in that direction, but still almost as much afraid of friends as foes. My pursuers gained on me, for the prickly underwood not only obstructed my passage, but tore my flesh miserably; and the delight with which I saw a mountain-stream gliding along at the bottom of a deep ravine cannot be imagined. My strength had almost left me, and I seized the young branches issuing from the stump of a large tree which overhung the ravine, for the purpose of letting myself down into the water, as the sides were precipitous, when, under my hand, as the branch yielded to the weight of my body, a large liffa, the worst kind of serpent this country produces, rose from its coil, as if in the very act of striking. I was horror-struck, and deprived for a moment of all recollection—the branch slipped from my hand, and I tumbled headlong into the water beneath; this shock, however, revived me, and with three strokes of my arms I reached the opposite bank, which, with difficulty, I crawled up; and then, for the first time, felt myself safe from my pursuers.

Scarcely had I audibly congratulated myself on my escape, when the forlorn and wretched situation in which I was, without even a rag to cover me, flashed with all its force upon my imagination. I was perfectly collected, though fully alive to all the danger to which my state exposed me, and had already begun to plan my night’s rest, in the top of one of the tamarind-trees, in order to escape the panthers which, as I had seen, abounded in these woods, when the idea of the liffas, almost as numerous, and equally to be dreaded, excited a shudder of despair.

I now saw horsemen through the trees, still farther to the east, and determined on reaching them, if possible, whether friends or enemies; and the feelings of gratitude and joy with which I recognised Barca Gana and Boo-Khaloom, with about six Arabs, although they also were pressed closely by a party of the Felatahs, was beyond description. The guns and pistols of the Arab sheikhs kept the Felatahs in check, and assisted in some measure the retreat of the footmen. I hailed them with all my might; but the noise and confusion which prevailed, from the cries of those who were falling under the Felatah spears, the cheers of the Arabs rallying and their enemies pursuing, would have drowned all attempts to make myself heard, had not Maramy, the sheikh’s negro, seen and known me at a distance. To this man I was indebted for my second escape; riding up to me, he assisted me to mount behind him, while the arrows whistled over our heads, and we then galloped off to the rear as fast as his wounded horse could carry us: after we had gone a mile or two, and the pursuit had something cooled, in consequence of all the baggage having been abandoned to the enemy, Boo-Khaloom rode up to me, and desired one of the Arabs to cover me with a bornouse. This was a most welcome relief, for the burning sun had already begun to blister my neck and back, and gave me the greatest pain. Shortly after, the effects of the poisoned wound in his foot caused our excellent friend to breathe his last: Maramy exclaimed, “Look, look! Boo-Khaloom is dead!” I turned my head, almost as great an exertion as I was capable of, and saw him drop from the horse into the arms of his favourite Arab—he never spoke after. They said he had only swooned; there was no water, however, to revive him; and about an hour after, when we came to Makkeray, he was past the reach of restoratives.

About the time Boo-Khaloom dropped, Barca Gana ordered a slave to bring me a horse, from which he had just dismounted, being the third that had been wounded under him in the course of the day; his wound was in the chest. Maramy cried, “_Sidi rais!_ do not mount him; he will die!” In a moment, for only a moment was given me, I decided on remaining with Maramy. Two Arabs, panting with fatigue, then seized the bridle, mounted, and pressed their retreat: in less than half an hour he fell to rise no more, and both the Arabs were butchered before they could recover themselves. Had we not now arrived at the water as we did, I do not think it possible that I could have supported the thirst by which I was consuming. I tried several times to speak in reply to Maramy’s directions to hold tight, when we came to breaks or inequalities in the ground; but it was impossible; and a painful straining at the stomach and throat was the only effect produced by the effort.

On coming to the stream, the horses, with blood gushing from their nostrils, rushed into the shallow water, and, letting myself down from behind Maramy, I knelt down amongst them, and seemed to imbibe new life by the copious draughts of the muddy beverage which I swallowed. Of what followed I have no recollection: Maramy told me afterwards that I staggered across the stream, which was not above my hips, and fell down at the foot of a tree on the other side. About a quarter of an hour’s halt took place here for the benefit of stragglers, and to tie poor Boo-Khaloom’s body on a horse’s back, at the end of which Maramy awoke me from a deep sleep, and I found my strength wonderfully increased: not so, however, our horse, for he had become stiff, and could scarcely move. As I learnt afterwards, a conversation had taken place about me, while I slept, which rendered my obligations to Maramy still greater: he had reported to Barca Gana the state of his horse, and the impossibility of carrying me on, when the chief, irritated by his losses and defeat, as well as at my having refused his horse, by which means, he said, it had come by its death, replied, “Then leave him behind. By the head of the Prophet! believers enough have breathed their last to-day. What is there extraordinary in a Christian’s death?” “_Raas il Nibbe-Salaam Yassarat il le mated el Yeom ash min gieb l’can e mut Nesserani Wahad_.” My old antagonist Malem Chadily replied, “No, God has preserved him; let us not forsake him!” Maramy returned to the tree, and said “his heart told him what to do.” He awoke me, assisted me to mount, and we moved on as before, but with tottering steps and less speed. The effect produced on the horses that were wounded by poisoned arrows was extraordinary: immediately after drinking they dropped, and instantly died, the blood gushing from their nose, mouth, and ears. More than thirty horses were lost at this spot from the effects of the poison.

In this way we continued our retreat, and it was after midnight when we halted in the sultan of Mandara’s territory. Riding more than forty-five miles, in such an unprovided state, on the bare back of a lean horse, the powerful consequences may be imagined. I was in a deplorable state the whole night; and notwithstanding the irritation of the flesh wounds was augmented by the woollen covering the Arab had thrown over me, teeming as it was with vermin, it was evening the next day before I could get a shirt, when one man who had two, both of which he had worn eight or ten days at least, gave me one, on a promise of getting a new one at Kouka. Barca Gana, who had no tent but the one he had left behind him with his women at Mora, on our advance, could offer me no shelter; and he was besides so ill, or chagrined, as to remain invisible the whole day. I could scarcely turn from one side to the other, but still, except at intervals when my friend Maramy supplied me with a drink made from parched corn, bruised, and steeped in water, a grateful beverage, I slept under a tree nearly the whole night and day, of the 29th. Towards the evening I was exceedingly disordered and ill, and had a pleasing proof of the kind-heartedness of a Bornouese.

Mai Meegamy, the dethroned sultan of a country to the south-west of Angornou, and now subject to the sheikh, took me by the hand as I had crawled out of my nest for a few minutes, and with many exclamations of sorrow, and a countenance full of commiseration, led me to his leather tent, and, sitting down quickly, disrobed himself of his trowsers, insisting I should put them on. Really, no act of charity could exceed this! I was exceedingly affected at so unexpected a friend, for I had scarcely seen, or spoken three words to him; but not so much so as himself, when I refused to accept of them:—he shed tears in abundance; and thinking, which was the fact, that I conceived he had offered the only ones he had, immediately called a slave, whom he stripped of those necessary appendages to a man’s dress, according to our ideas, and putting them on himself, insisted again on my taking those he had first offered me. I accepted this offer, and thanked him with a full heart; and Meegamy was my great friend from that moment until I quitted the sheikh’s dominions.

We found that forty-five of the Arabs were killed, and nearly all wounded; their camels, and every thing they possessed, lost. Some of them had been unable to keep up on the retreat, but had huddled together in threes and fours during the night, and by showing resistance, and pointing their guns, had driven the Felatahs off. Their wounds were some of them exceedingly severe, and several died during the day and night of the 29th; their bodies, as well as poor Boo-Khaloom’s, becoming instantly swollen and black; and sometimes, immediately after death, blood issuing from the nose and mouth, which the Bornou people declared to be in consequence of the arrows having been poisoned. The surviving Arabs, who had now lost all their former arrogance and boasting, humbly entreated Barca Gana to supply them with a little corn to save them from starving. The sultan of Mandara behaved to them unkindly, though not worse than they deserved, refused all manner of supplies, and kept Boo-Khaloom’s saddle, horse-trappings, and the clothes in which he died. He also began making preparations for defending himself against the Felatahs, who, he feared, might pay him a visit; and on the morning of the 30th April we left Mora, heartily wishing them success, should they make the attempt.

Boo-Khaloom’s imprudence in having suffered himself to be persuaded to attack the Felatahs became now apparent, as although, in case of his overcoming them, he might have appropriated to himself all the slaves, both male and female, that he found amongst them; yet the Felatahs themselves were Moslem, and he could not have made them slaves. He was, however, most likely deceived by promises of a Kerdy country to plunder, in the event of his success against these powerful people, alike the dreaded enemies of the sheikh and the sultan of Mandara.

My wounded horse, which had been caught towards the evening of the fight by the Shouaas, and brought to me, was in too bad a state for me to mount, and Barca Gana procured me another. My pistols had been stolen from the holsters; but, fortunately, my saddle and bridle, though broken, remained. Thus ended our most unsuccessful expedition; it had, however, injustice and oppression for its basis, and who can regret its failure?

We returned with great expedition, considering the wretched state we were in. On the sixth day after our departure from Mora, we arrived in Kouka, a distance of one hundred and eighty miles: the wounded Arabs remained behind, being unable to keep up with the chief, and did not arrive until four days after us. I suffered much, both in mind and body, but complained not; indeed all complaint would have been ill-timed, where few were enduring less than myself. My black servant had lost mule, canteens, and every thing, principally from keeping too near me in the action; and, by his obeying implicitly the strict orders I had given him not to fire on the Felatahs, he had narrowly escaped with his life. Bruised and lame, he could render me no assistance, and usually came in some hours after we had halted on our resting-ground. In the mid-day halts I usually crept under Mai Meegamy’s tent; but at night I laid me down on the ground, close to that of Barca Gana, in order that my horse might get a feed of corn. I always fell into a sound sleep at night, as soon as I lay down, after drinking Maramy’s beverage, who had supplied me with a little bag of parched corn, which he had procured at Mora; and about midnight a slave of the chief, whose name was, most singularly like my own, Denhamah, always awoke me, to eat some gussub, paste, and fat, mixed with a green herb called _meloheia_ in Arabic. This was thrust out from under Barca Gana’s tent, and consisted generally of his leavings: pride was sometimes nearly choking me, but hunger was the paramount feeling: I smothered the former, ate, and was thankful. It was in reality a great kindness; for besides myself and the chief, not one, I believe, in the remnant of our army, tasted any thing but _engagy_, parched corn and cold water, during the whole six days of our march. On the night of the 4th of May we arrived at Angornou.

The extreme kindness of the sheikh, however, was some consolation to me, after all my sufferings. He said, in a letter to Barca Gana, “that he should have grieved had any thing serious happened to me; that my escape was providential, and a proof of God’s protection; and that my head was saved for good purposes.” He also sent me some linen he had procured from our huts at Kouka, and a dress of the country; and the interest taken by their governor in the fate of such a kaffir, as they thought me, increased exceedingly the respect of his servants towards me. The next morning we arrived at the capital.

I presented Barca Gana with a brace of French ornamented pistols, and with pink taffeta sufficient for a tobe, which he received with great delight. The sheikh sent me a horse in lieu of the wounded one which I had left at Merty, with but small hopes of his recovery; and my bruises and wounds, which were at first but trifling, got well so surprisingly quick, from the extreme low diet I had from necessity been kept to, that I was not in so bad a condition as might have been expected. My losses, however, were severe; my trunk with nearly all my linen, my canteens, a mule, my azimuth compass, my drawing-case, with a sketch of the hills, were also lost, although I obtained another sketch the morning of our quitting Mora. Such events, however, must sometimes be the consequence of exploring countries like these. The places I had visited were full of interest, and could never have been seen, except by means of a military expedition, without still greater risk. The dominions of the sheikh, in consequence of his being so extraordinarily enlightened for an inhabitant of central Africa, appear to be open to us; but on looking around, when one sees dethroned sultans nearly as common as bankrupts in England; where the strong arm for the time being has hitherto changed the destiny of kings and kingdoms; no discoveries can be accomplished beyond this, without the greatest hazard both of life and property.

The sheikh laid all the blame of the defeat upon the Mandara troops, and assured me that I should see how his people fought when he was with them, in an expedition which he contemplated against Munga, a country to the west. I told him that I was quite ready to accompany him; and this assurance seemed to give him particular satisfaction.

Of the Mandara chain, and its surrounding and incumbent hills, though full of interest, I regret my inability to give a more perfect account. Such few observations, however, as struck me on my visiting them, I shall lay before the reader. It is on occasions like this, that a traveller laments the want of extensive scientific knowledge. I must therefore request those under whose eye these remarks may come to regard them in the light they are offered, not as pretensions to knowledge, but merely very humble endeavours at communicating information to the best of my ability.

The elevation gradually increases in advancing towards the equator; and the soil, on approaching Delow, where the northernmost point of the Mandara chain commences, is covered with a glittering micaceous sand, principally decomposed granite, which forms a productive earth. The hills extend in apparently interminable ridges east-south-east, south-west, and west; while to the south several masses or systems of hills, if I may so express myself, spread themselves out in almost every picturesque form and direction that can be imagined. Those nearest the eye apparently do not exceed 2500 feet in height; but the towering peaks which appear in the distance are several thousand feet higher. They are composed of enormous blocks of granite, both detached and reclining on each other, presenting the most rugged faces and sides. The interstices and fissures appeared to be filled with a yellow quartzose earth, in which were growing mosses and lichens: trees of considerable size also grow from between them. On almost all the hills that I approached, clusters of huts were seen in several places towards the centre, and sometimes quite at the summit; generally on the flats of the ridges. At the base of these mountains, and also at a considerable elevation on their sides, are incumbent masses of what appeared to be the decomposed fragments of primitive rocks recompounded, and united anew by a species of natural cement. At some distance from the base of those which I ascended from the valley of Mora, were collections of quartzose rocks, of great variety and colour; fragments of hornblende, and several large abutments of porphyroidal rocks. About one hundred yards above the spring which I have before mentioned, in a space between two projecting masses of rock, were numerous shells, some petrified and finely preserved, while others were perforated by insects, worm-eaten, and destroyed: they were confusedly mixed with fragments of granite, quartz, sand and clay; and in some cases adhered to pieces of the composition rocks: the greater part were of the oyster kind. Various specimens of these, with pieces of every variety of the structure of the hills, I had collected, but they were all lost in the general confusion of the battle; and on the return of the army I was unable to do more than procure a few specimens of the northernmost part of the mountains; and the half of these were lost by my negro.

Of the extent of this chain, or rather these groups of mountains, I can form no idea, except from the information of the Mandara people. I have met with a man who (by the way) wanted to persuade me that he was a son of Hornemann by his slave, although, from his appearance, he must have been born ten years before that unfortunate traveller entered this country. He said he had been twenty days south of Mandara, to a country called Adamowa, which he described as being situated in the centre of a plain surrounded by mountains ten times higher than any we could see; that he went first to Mona or Monana, which was five days, and then to Bogo, which was seven more; and here, for one Soudan tobe, the sultan gave him four slaves. After eight days’ travelling from this latter country, he arrived at Adamowa. These people, he says (that is, the Kerdies on the hills; for Adamowa itself is occupied by Felatahs), eat the flesh of horses, mules, and asses, or of any wild animal that they kill: nobody but the sultans and their children are clothed; all the rest of the nation go naked; the men sometimes wear a skin round the loins, but the women nothing. This man, who was called Kaid-Moussa-ben-Yusuf (Hornemann’s name), spoke to me of several extensive lakes which he had seen in this journey, and also described with great clearness a river running between two very high ridges of the mountains, which he crossed previous to arriving at Adamowa. This river he declared to run from the west, and to be the same as the Quolla or Quana at Nyffe, Kora, and at Raka, but not the same as the river at Kano, which had nothing to do with the Shary, and which ran into the Tchad; but the main body of the water ran on to the south of Begharmi, was then called the D’Ago, and went eastward to the Nile. Kaid-Moussa was a very intelligent fellow, had visited Nyffe, Raka, Waday, and Darfur; by which latter place also, he said this river passed. He was most particularly clear in all his accounts, and his statement agreed in some points with the information a Shouaa named Dreess-boo-Raas-ben-aboo-Deleel had given me; therefore I was the more inclined to pay attention to it. To the south of this river, the population is entirely Kerdy, until the Great Desert. This desert is passed several times in the year by kafilas with white people, not Christians, who bring goods from the great sea: some of these reach Adamowa. He himself saw white loaf sugar, such as the merchants brought here from Tripoli to the sheikh, and a gun or two, with metal pots and pans, and arrack (rum). The inhabitants were unanimous in declaring these mountains to extend southward for two months’ journey; and in describing them, Yusuf called them “kou kora, kora, kantaga,”—mountains large, large, moon mountains. And from the increased love of enterprise apparent in our rising generation, we may one day hope to be as well acquainted with the true character of these stupendous mountains as with the lofty peaks of the Andes.

The extreme southern peak which I could discern was that called Mendify, which rose into the air with singular boldness. It was said to be a distance from Musfeia of two long days’ journey,—say thirty-five miles. At that distance, it had all the character of an alpine peak, of a most patriarchal height. I could perceive with a glass other mountains extending from its sides, the forms of which bore a tranquil character, compared with the arid and steep peaks which overlooked them. It resembled very much in appearance “Les Arguilles,” as they appear looking at them from the Mer-de-Glace. The following outline may serve to show their shape and character.

Iron is found in abundance in all the Mandara hills; but no other metal, that I was informed of. All the houses or huts at Mandara have outer doors to the court, which are made of pieces of wood, hasped together with iron. They make hinges, small bars, and a sort of hoe used to weed the corn, and send them for sale to the Bornou towns. The iron they use is mostly brought from the west near Karowa. I went to the house of a blacksmith, for the purpose of seeing some of the metal in its natural state, and found four men with a very rude forge, formed by a hole in the sand: the bellows were two kid skins, with an iron tube fixed in each, which tubes were conveyed underneath the fire. The wind was produced by a man blowing these skins, which were open at the top to let in the air. Their hammers were two pieces of iron, weighing about two pounds each, and a coarse piece of the same metal for an anvil; and considering their implements, they worked with some tact. I regretted much that I had not an English hammer to give them. Large masses of the iron, as nature produces it, were lying about; and they appeared to me as so many rusty earthy masses.

In appearance, the people of Mandara differ from the Bornouese, or Kanoury (as they call themselves); and the difference is all in favour of the former. The men are intelligent and lively, with high though flat foreheads, large sparkling eyes, wiry curled hair, noses inclining to the aquiline, and features altogether less flattened than the Bornouese. The women are proverbial for their good looks,—I cannot say beauty. I must allow them, however, all their acknowledged celebrity of form: they are certainly singularly gifted with the Hottentot protuberance; their hands and feet are delightfully small; and as these are all esteemed qualifications in the eye of a Turk, Mandara slaves will always obtain an advanced price. Certainly I never saw so much of them as when sporting in their native wilds, with not so much covering on as one of Eve’s fig-leaves. A man who took me to be a Moorish merchant led me to his house, in order to show me the best looking slaves in Mandara. He had three, all under sixteen, yet quite women; for these are precocious climes; and certainly, for negresses, they were the most pleasing and perfectly formed I had ever seen. They had simply a piece of blue striped linen round their loins, yet they knew not their nakedness. Many of these beauties are to be seen at Kouka and Angornou: they are never, however, exposed in the fsug, but sold in the houses of the merchants. So much depends on the magnitude of those attractions for which their southern sisters are so celebrated, that I have known a man about to make a purchase of one out of three, regardless of the charms of feature, turn their faces from him, and looking at them behind, just above the hips, as we dress a line of soldiers, make choice of her whose person most projected beyond that of her companions.

The day before the Rhamadan, which commenced on the 13th instant (May), I had an interview with the sheikh, who mentioned his intended departure for Munga; and after some conversation, it was agreed that I should proceed to Old Bornou or Birnie; and after seeing that part of the country, the ruins of the town of Gambarou, and the river of that name, which is said to come from Soudan; that I should follow its course, and join him at a place called Kabshary on the same river, to which he was about to proceed by a different route. The whole population was in confusion at the departure of this ghrazzie, and nearly all the people of Kouka, with the exception of the kadi, were to accompany the sheikh. Previously, however, to his departure, he had determined on sending off a courier to Tripoli, with an account of Boo Khaloom’s death, and we availed ourselves of the opportunity by writing to England. On the 17th of May the courier departed; and on the 18th the sheikh began his march, and bivouacked at Dowergoo.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: _Silsel_: irons placed round the necks of refractory slaves.]

[Footnote 24: The band also sang some extempore verses on my joining them, of which the following is nearly a literal translation, and delighted their chief excessively.

Christian man he come,

Friend of us and sheikhobe;

White man, when he hear my song,

Fine new tobe give me.

Christian man all white,

And dollars white have he;

Kanourie like him come,

Black man’s friend to be.

See Felatah, how he run;

Barca Gana shake his spear:

White man carry two-mouthed gun,

That’s what make Felatah fear.]

[Footnote 25: A general term for unbelievers.]

[Footnote 26: Abdul Kassum-ben-Maliki came from this town, and speaks of his people as having great influence with the sultan of Timbuctoo: their language is alike; and he conversed as freely with a Felatah slave from Musfeia, as if she had been his countrywoman, although they were born probably fifteen hundred miles distant from each other.]

[Footnote 27: A deputation of twenty-seven from Musfeia and Zouay had but a short time before arrived at Mora, for the purpose of arranging some detention of property belonging to them, which had been seized by the Mandara people. They were admitted to a parley; but had no sooner quitted the presence of the sultan, than the throats of all of them were instantly cut by the eunuchs and their slaves.]