rse are almost at a
standstill; good faith and confidence exist no more. The indolence of
the court avoids military expeditions, and anarchy and a lack of
security on the routes are the consequences.... Thus the sheik and the
land grow poorer and poorer, and public morality sinks lower and
lower."

After the visit of Nachtigal the country was visited by no European
traveller until 1892, when Colonel P.L. Monteil resided for a time at
Kuka during his great journey from the Senegal to Tripoli. The French
traveller noticed many signs of decadence, the energy of the people
being sapped by luxury, while a virtual anarchy prevailed owing to
rivalries and intrigues among members of the royal family. The chief of
Zinder had ceased to pay tribute, and the sultan was not strong enough
to exact it by force. At the same time a danger was threatening from the
south-east, where the negro adventurer Rabah, once a slave of Zobeir
Pasha, was menacing the kingdom of Bagirmi. After making himself master
of the fortified town of Manifa, Rabah proceeded against Bornu,
defeating the army of the sultan Ahsem in two pitched battles. In
December 1893 Ahsem fled from Kuka, which was entered by Rabah and soon
afterwards destroyed, the capital being transferred to Dikwa in the
south-east of the kingdom. These events ruined for many years the trade
between Tripoli and Kuka by the long-established route via Bilma. Rabah
had raised a large, well-drilled army, and proved a formidable opponent
to the French in their advance on Lake Chad from the south. However in
1900 he was killed at Kussuri near the lower Shari, by the combined
forces of three French expeditions which had been converging from the
Congo, the Sahara and the Niger.

By an Anglo-French agreement of 1898 the tributary state of Zinder in
the north had been included in the French sphere, and after the defeat
of Rabah French military expeditions occupied both the German and
British portions of Bornu, but in 1902 on the appearance of British and
German expeditions the French withdrew to their own country east of the
Shari. The British placed on the throne of Bornu Shehu Garbai, a
descendant of the ancient sultans, and Kuka was again chosen as the
capital of the state. From that date British Bornu has been under
administrative control. It has been divided into East and West Bornu,
the line of division being fixed approximately at longitude 12 deg., and
placed under the administrati