less. We had no water but the muddy beverage we had brought with us. Through an open space, or break in the wood, I had this day seen part of the Mandara hills, and had passed an extensive line of huts belonging to the Beni-hassan Shouaas. We were now but a few miles from the capital of Mandara, and several persons had arrived from the sultan, within the last two days, to welcome Barca Gana; but this evening one of his chiefs came, attended by about twenty horsemen, saying, “ that the sultan would himself meet us the next day, on the road to Mora, his residence.” Our force had been increased, during the march, by several Shouaa sheikhs joining us, with their followers, both from the banks of the Tchad and from the west. We always found them drawn up on a certain spot on the road; and their salutation was by charging rapidly up, and shaking the spear at the kashella, wishing he might “ crush his enemies as an elephant tramples on his victim,” and such like expressions. By these accessions we were now upwards of three thousand strong, all cavalry, with the exception of about eighty Arabs on foot. We continued to approach a noble chain of hills, which were now' full in our view, of considerable height and extent, with numerous trees growing on their steep and rugged sides. Delow, the first town we arrived at in Mandara, formerly the residence of the sultan, containing at least 10,000 inhabitants, has springs of beautiful fresh water; and in the valleys fig-trees; and trees, which bore a white flower resembling the zeringa, possessing a grateful odour, were plentiful. At about a mile from this town, we saw before us the sultan of Mandara, surrounded by about five hundred horsemen, posted on a rising ground ready to receive us, /when Barca Gana instantly commanded a halt. Different parties'now charged up to the front of our fine, and wheeling suddenly round, charged back again to the sultan. These people were finely dressed in Soudan tobes of different HrI
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