"His Body Lies In The Land Of The Heathen!

The poisoned arrow of the unbeliever prevails!

"Oh trust not to the gun and the sword! The spear of the heathen conquers! Boo Khaloom, the good and the brave, has fallen! Who shall now be safe?"

The sheik of Bornou was considerably mortified by the result of this expedition, and the miserable figure made by his troops, though he sought to throw the chief blame on the Mandara part of the armament. He now invited the major to accompany an expedition against the Mungas, a rebel tribe on his outer border, on which occasion he was to employ his native band of Kanemboo spearmen, who, he trusted, would redeem the military reputation of the monarchy. Major Denham was always ready to go wherever he had a chance of seeing the manners and scenery of Africa. The sheik took the field, attended by his armour-bearer, his drummer, fantastically dressed in a straw hat with ostrich feathers, and followed by-three wives, whose heads and persons were wrapped up in brown silk robes, and each led by a eunuch. He was preceded by five green and red flags, on each of which were extracts from the Koran, written in letters of gold. Etiquette even required that the sultan should follow with his unwieldy pomp, having a harem, and attendance much more numerous; while frumfrums, or wooden trumpets, were continually sounding before him. This monarch is too distinguished to fight in person; but his guards, the swollen and overloaded figures formerly described, enveloped in multiplied folds, and groaning beneath the weight of ponderous amulets, produced themselves as warriors, though manifestly unfit to face any real danger.

The route lay along the banks of the river Yeou, called also Gambarou, through a country naturally fertile and delightful, but presenting a dismal picture of the desolation occasioned by African warfare. The expedition passed through upwards of thirty towns, completely destroyed by the Fellatas in their last inroad, and of which all the inhabitants had been either killed or carried into slavery. These fine plains were now overgrown with forests and thickets, in which grew tamarind and other trees, producing delicate fruits, while large bands of monkeys, called by the Arabs "enchanted men," filled the woods with their cries. Here, too, was found old Birnie, the ancient but now desolate capital, evidently much larger than any of the present cities, covering five or six miles with its ruins. They passed also Gambarou, formerly the favourite residence of the sultans, where the remains of a palace and two mosques gave an idea of civilization superior to any thing that had yet been seen in interior Africa. There were left in this country only small detached villages, the inhabitants of which remained fixed to them by local attachment, in spite of constant predatory inroads of the Tuaricks, who carried off their friends, their children, and cattle. They have recourse to one mode of defence, which consists in digging a number of blaquas, or large pits; these they cover with a false surface of sods and grass, into which the Tuarick with his horse plunges before he is aware, and is received at the bottom upon sharp-pointed stakes, which often kill both on the spot.

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