HI ¡ill II I I ■ 111 For several days we were kept in the greatest suspense. No news arrived from the army. Reports varied: it was said Barca Gana had pushed on to Maou and Waday; again, that he was gone to the islands. We had thunder and rain, with distressing heat, and flies, and mosquitoes to torture. Belial would not go on, and I would not go back: we were consuming daily our store of rice, with eight days before us to Woodie, through a country without supplies. July 6.—On the evening of yesterday, Barca Gana, with the chiefs, and about half their force, returned; the remainder had been obliged to halt on the road, to refresh their horses. He had pushed on to Maou after Edirshe Gebere, a Shouaa chief ofKorataMendooby. Fugboo Kochamy, as he was called, was the fourth khalifa whom the sheikh had placed at Maou (his three predecessors having been strangled by the Waday people); he was first cousin to Edirshe, who, affecting friendship for him, lulled his suspicions, and one night attacked him in his capital. Kochamy made a gallant defence; he killed nine of them with his spear, but was at length overcome, and died, with eleven others of the sheikh’s allies. Fugboo Jemamy, his brother, alone escaped: to assist Jemamy was the object of Barca Gana. Edirshe had news of their movements, notwithstanding they went nearly fifty miles in a day and night, and appeared first at Mendoo, and then at Maou, on the day after they left us. Edirshe had fled with all his cattle and women: they found them about ten miles from Maou, entrenched within a circular camp, with all their cattle, women, and children, strongly defended with stakes; their bowmen were all distributed between the stakes, and in front of the entrenchment : they saluted their enemies with shrill cries on their approach, and the sheikh’s people, after looking at them for a day and a night, without any provisions for either men or horses, dared not attack them. Disappointed, therefore, in their hopes of plunder MSS
27f 24
To see the actual publication please follow the link above