tion were mustered at Kobshary, a town which the Mungas had nearly
destroyed. The sheik made a review of his favourite forces, the
Kanemboo spearmen, nine thousand strong. They were really a very
savage and military-looking host, entirely naked, except a girdle of
goat-skin, with the hair hanging down, and a piece of cloth wrapped
round the head. They carried large wooden shields, shaped like a
gothic window, with which they warded off the arrows of the enemy,
while they pressed forward to attack with their own spears. Unlike
almost all other barbarous armies, they kept a regular night-watch,
passing the cry every half-hour along the line, and, at any alarm,
raising a united yell, which was truly frightful. At the review they
passed in tribes before the sheik, to whom they showed the most
enthusiastic attachment, kneeling on the ground, and kissing his
feet. The Mungas again were described as terrible antagonists,
hardened by conflicts with the Tuaricks, fighting on foot with
poisoned arrows, longer and more deadly than those of the Fellatas.

The sultan, however, contemplated other means of securing success,
placing his main reliance on his powers as a mohammedan doctor and
writer. Three successive nights were spent in inscribing upon little
scraps of paper figures or words, destined to exercise a magical
influence upon the rebel host, and their effect was heightened by the
display of sky-rockets, supplied by Major Denham. Tidings of his
being thus employed were conveyed to the camp, when the Mungas, stout
and fierce warriors, who never shrunk from an enemy, yielded to the
power of superstition, and felt all their strength withered. It
seemed to them that their arrows were blunted, their quivers broken,
their hearts struck with sickness and fear, in short, that to oppose
a sheik of the Koran, who could accomplish such wonders, was alike
vain and impious. They came in by hundreds, bowing themselves to the
ground, and casting sand on their heads, in token of the most abject
submission. At length, Malem Fanamy, the leader of the rebellion, saw
that resistance was hopeless. After vain overtures of conditional
submission, he appeared in person, mounted on a white horse, with one
thousand followers. He was clothed in rags, and having fallen
prostrate, was about to pour sand on his head, when the sultan,
instead of permitting this humiliation, caused eight robes of fine
cotton cloth, one after another, to be thrown over him,