392 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
Previous to my work on Lake Chad I had the fortune to witness 
a Tubu raid upon the Mecca caravan. At that time the Yo districts 
were in a most unsettled state; natives went about fully armed, and 
only traveled by night, for fear of the Tubus, who were on the war- 
path. These people are the nomad robbers of the Sahara. Armed 
with long spears, and mounted on small ponies and camels, they cover | 
long distances, concentrating suddenly when a raid is contemplated, 
afterwards to scatter and as quickly disappear. Many of the lawless 
Mobbur are their worthy allies, acting as spies, and sharing a portion 
of the spoils. While the last great Mecca caravan was traveling 
through this country, escorted by the Kachella of Yo, it was heavily 
ambushed near Bulturi. The Mobburs opened the attack by flights 
of poisoned arrows, while the Tubu horsemen charged on the flanks, 
cutting off numbers of the flocks of the caravan, which spread over 
2 miles of road, and numbered seven hundred people and nearly a 
thousand cattle. With the lossof twelve men and thirty horses killed, 
the Kachella, who had eight spear wounds, with his hundred horse- 
men kept the enemy at bay, and, under the protection of darkness, 
brought the harassed caravan into Bulturi, where for five days the 
Tubus hemmed it in. On the fourth day the Kachella managed to 
get a runner through to me. Accordingly, with all the arrowmen 
and horsemen I could muster at Yo, I reached Bulturi in time to 
relieve him. At daybreak we moved out of the town. It was a 
picturesque sight. Whole families were there, driving their flocks 
and carrying with them all their worldly belongings, and their chil- 
dren, perched on the backs of bullocks and camels. Among this pil- 
erimage there traveled pale-faced Fulanis, Hausas from Sokoto, 
handsome dark-skinned people from Melle and Timbuktu, and many 
Mallams or priests, turbaned and clothed in white, walked calm and 
heedless of the danger, incessantly telling their beads. When close 
to Yo the Tubus were dispersed, for their leader had been killed, and 
the Kachella’s warriors concentrated and advanced past me in a long 
line toward the town, and then the women and children crowded 
round the king, asking for news. All night long the hours were 
broken by the wail of women calling upon their dead men to return. 
To go back to the expedition. Ascending the Shari, with fine 
steep banks and an average width of 500 yards, we traveled through 
the land of the Kotokos, the giants of the Sudan; and at Gulfei, the 
big Kotoko chief, some 6 feet 3 inches in height, received us with all 
his infantry and horsemen. 
After leaving Fort Lamy the river has a winding course, eh an 
average width of 800 yards, now and again widening out to a mile. 
In places the scenery reminds one forcibly of our English woodlands. 
Throughout its entire course the river flows through a very flat coun- 
try, much of which is under water during the heavy rains. 
