fbenn? Hstburp Xev>eson 523 



February, 1863, at Epe, a large village about thirty 

 miles from Lagos, on the Lagoon, in order to save 

 three officers of the navy and a boat's crew from 

 being cut off from the shore, by overwhelming numbers 

 of armed natives, I found it necessary to make a flank 

 attack on the main body of about 1,200 men, com- 

 manded by the refractory chief Possoo. There was a 

 good deal of thick bush, and I was enabled to approach 

 undiscovered, when my Haussas, who were only forty 

 in number, gave them a volley, taking them by surprise, 

 and causing a panic, which was immediately followed 

 by a stampedo. As they could not understand an 

 attack on the flank and rear, they broke and scattered 

 in all directions, when a good deal of desultory skirmish- 

 ing took place, during which I received a very severe 

 gunshot wound under the right ear. At the sight of 

 my being hit the Haussas gave a fiendish yell, and, 

 roused almost to frenzy, rushed on the enemy with 

 their machetes (a kind of cutlass), taking two small 

 iron cannon, mounted on blocks of wood. I noticed 

 the fellow who hit me stealing away through the bush, 

 and brought him to the ground with a bullet through 

 the back from my breech-loading carbine which had 

 done good work that morning, and in another moment 

 his head was hacked off, and stuck as a fetish on a 

 branch of a tree. My object being attained, and the 

 enemy being in full flight, I rejoined Commander Le 

 Froy, who assisted me in the boat, for I was faint 

 from loss of blood, and took me off to the steamer, 

 ' Investigator,' which was throwing shells into the town. 

 I was found to be very dangerously wounded, for an 



