s, 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. Unluckily, harmless travellers are
equally liable to fall into these living graves. Major Denham was
petrified with horror, to find how near he had approached to several
of them; indeed one of his servants stepped upon the deceitful
covering, and was saved only by an almost miraculous spring. It seems
wonderful that the sheik should not have endeavoured to restore some
kind of security to this portion of his subjects, and to re-people
those fine but deserted regions.

The troops that had been seen hastening in parties to the scene of
ac