Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley. William Henry Giles Kingston
As they were riding along, several leopards ran swiftly from them, twisting their long tails in the air. A large one was seen, which Maraymy remarked was so satiated with the blood of a negro it had just before killed, that it would be easily destroyed. The Shooa soon planted a spear, which passed through the animal’s neck. It rolled over, breaking the spear, and bounded off with the lower half in its body. Another Shooa attacking it, the animal, with a howl, was in the act of springing on the pursuer, when an Arab shot it through the head.
On emerging from the wood, the large Felatah town of Durkulla was perceived, and the Arabs were formed in front, headed by Boo-Khaloum. They were flanked on each side by a large body of cavalry, who, as they moved on, shouted the Arab war-cry. Denham thought he could perceive a smile pass between Barca Gana and his chief, at poor Boo-Khaloum’s expense.
Durkulla was quickly burned, and another small town near it. The few inhabitants found in them, being infants or aged persons, unable to escape, were put to death or thrown into the flames. A third town, called Musfeia, built on a rising ground, and capable of being defended against assailants ten times as numerous as the besiegers, was next reached. A strong fence of palisades, well pointed, and fastened together with thongs of raw hide, six feet in height, had been carried from one hill to the other. Felatah bowmen were placed behind the palisades and on the rising ground, with a wady before them, while their horses were all under cover of the hills. This was a strong position. The Arabs, however, moved on with great gallantry, without any support from the Bornou or Mandara troops, and, notwithstanding the showers of arrows, some poisoned, which were poured on them from behind the palisades, Boo-Khaloum carried them in about half an hour, and dashed on, driving the Felatahs up the sides of the hills. The women were everywhere seen supplying their protectors with fresh arrows, till they retreated, still shooting on their pursuers. The women also rolled down huge masses of rock, killing several Arabs. Barca Gana, with his spearmen, at length advanced to the support of Boo-Khaloum, and pierced through and through some fifty unfortunates, who were left wounded near the stakes. The major rode by his side into the town, where a desperate skirmish took place, but Barca Gana with his muscular arm threw eight spears, some at a distance of thirty yards or more, which all told. Had either the Mandara or the sheikh’s troops now moved up boldly, they must have carried the town and the heights above it. Instead of this, they kept on the other side of the wady, out of reach of the arrows. The Felatahs, seeing their backwardness, made so desperate an attack that the Arabs gave way. The Felatah horse came on. Had not Barca Gana and Boo-Khaloum, with his few mounted Arabs, given them a very spirited check, not one of their band would have lived to see the following day. As it was, Barca Gana had three horses hit under him, two of which died almost immediately, while poor Boo-Khaloum and his horse were both wounded. The major’s horse was also wounded in the neck, shoulder, and hind leg, and an arrow struck him in the face, merely drawing blood as it passed. He had two sticking in his bournous. The Arabs suffered terribly: most of them had two or three wounds; one dropped with five arrows sticking in his head, and two of Boo-Khaloum’s slaves were killed near him.
No sooner did the Mandara and Bornou troops see the defeat of the Arabs than they, one and all, took to flight in the most dastardly manner and the greatest confusion. The sultan led the way, having been prepared to take advantage of whatever plunder the success of the Arabs might throw into his hands; but no less determined to leave the field the moment the fortune of the day appeared to be against them.
Major Denham had reason to regret his folly in exposing himself, badly prepared as he was for accident. By flight only could he save himself. The whole army, which had now become a flying mass, plunged in the greatest disorder into the wood which had lately been left.
He had got to the westward of Barca Gana in the confusion, when he saw upwards of a hundred of the Bornou troops speared by the Felatahs, and was following the steps of one of the Mandara officers, when the cries behind, of the Felatah horse pursuing, made both quicken their pace. His wounded horse at this juncture stumbled and fell. Almost before he was on his legs the Felatahs were upon him. He had, however, kept hold of the bridle, and, seizing a pistol from the holster, presented it at two of the savages who were pressing him with their spears. They instantly went off; but another, who came on more boldly just as he was endeavouring to mount, received the contents in his shoulder, and he was enabled to place his foot in the stirrup. Remounting, he again retreated, but had not proceeded many hundred yards when his horse once more came down, with such violence as to throw him against a tree at a considerable distance. At this juncture, alarmed by the horses behind him, the animal got up and escaped, leaving the major on foot and unarmed.
The Mandara officer and his followers were butchered and stripped within a few yards of him. Their cries were dreadful. His hopes of life were too faint to deserve the name. He was almost instantly surrounded, and speedily stripped, his pursuers making several thrusts at him with their spears, wounding his hands severely, and his body slightly. In the first instance they had been prevented from murdering him by the fear of injuring the value of his clothes, which appeared to them a rich booty. His shirt was now torn off his back. When his plunderers began to quarrel for the spoil, the idea of escape came across his mind. Creeping under the belly of the horse nearest him, he started as fast as his legs would carry him, to the thickest part of the wood. Two of the Felatahs followed. He ran in the direction the stragglers of his own party had taken. His pursuers gained on him, for the prickly underwood tore his flesh and impeded his progress. Just then he saw a mountain stream gliding along at the bottom of a deep ravine. His strength had almost failed him, when, seizing the long branches of a tree overhanging the water, he let himself down into it. What was his horror to observe a large liffa, the most venomous of serpents, rise from its coil as if in the very act of striking! His senses left him, the branch slipped from his hand, and he tumbled headlong into the water. The shock, however, revived him, and with three strokes of his arms he reached the opposite bank, which with great difficulty he crawled up. He, at length, felt that he was safe from his pursuers. Still, the forlorn situation in which he was placed, without even a rag to cover his body, almost overwhelmed him. Yet, fully alive to the danger to which he was exposed, he had began to plan how he could best rest on the top of a tamarind tree, in order to escape from panthers, when the idea of liffas, almost as numerous, excited a shudder of despair. While trying to make his way through the woods, he observed two horsemen between the trees, and, still further to the east, with feelings of gratitude, he recognised Barca Gana and Boo-Khaloum, with about six Arabs. Although they were pressed closely by a party of Felatahs, the guns and pistols of the Arabs kept the latter in check. His shouts were drowned by the cries of those who were falling under the Felatahs’ spears and the cheers of the Arabs rallying; but, happily, Maraymy distinguished him at a distance. Riding up, the faithful black assisted the major to mount behind him, and, while the arrows whistled over their heads, they galloped off to the rear as fast as the black’s wounded horse could carry them. After they had gone a mile or two, Boo-Khaloum rode up and desired one of the Arabs to cover the major with a houmous. This was the last act of Denham’s unfortunate friend. Directly afterwards Maraymy exclaimed: “Look, Boo-Khaloum is dead!” The major turned his head, and saw the caravan leader drop from his horse into the arms of a favourite Arab. A poisoned arrow in his wounded foot had proved fatal. The Arabs believed he had only swooned; but there was no water to revive him, and before it could be obtained he was past the reach of stimulants. At the same time, Barca Gana offered the major a horse; but Maraymy exclaimed: “Do not mount him; he will die!” He therefore remained with the black. Two Arabs, however, mounted the animal, and in less than an hour he fell to rise no more; and, before they could recover themselves, both the Arabs were butchered by the Felatahs.
At last a stream was reached. The horses, with the blood gushing from their noses, rushed into the water, and the major, letting himself down, knelt amongst them, and seemed to imbibe new life from the copious draughts of the muddy beverage he swallowed. He then lost all consciousness; but Maraymy told him that he had staggered across the stream and fallen down at the foot of a tree. Here a quarter of an hour’s halt was made, to place Boo-Khaloum’s body on a horse and to collect stragglers, during which Maraymy had asked Barca Gana for another horse, in order to carry the major on, when the chief, irritated by his defeat, as well as by having had his horse refused, by which means he said it had come by its death, replied: “Then leave him behind.