208 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. LIX. 
afforded by the little town of Yara, which we reached 
after another three miles. We had left the faddama 
at some distance on our right, and kept along rocky 
ground occasionally broken by patches of fine sandy 
soil. But we were urgently warned, by people whom 
we met on our road, of the danger of an approaching 
ghazzia. 
This place, which a short time ago was the seat 
of human wellbeing, had been destroyed by the 
enemy on the 29th of the preceding month, and all 
the inhabitants carried into slavery, notwithstanding 
the presence of the expedition which, as I have 
mentioned above, marched out from Gando to the 
succour of their countrymen. The aspect of the 
place was doleful and melancholy in the extreme, 
corresponding well with the dangerous situation in 
which we found ourselves ; and while traversing the 
half-ruined village, which from a bustling little place 
had become the abode of death, I almost involun- 
tarily snatched my gun, and held it steadily in my 
hand. But life and death in these regions are closely 
allied ; and we had scarcely left the ruined village 
behind us, when, in a widening of the faddama, which 
again opened on our right, we were greeted by a most 
luxuriant rice-field, where the crops were already 
almost three feet high, and girt by the finest border 
of a rich variety of shady trees, such as the dor6wa, 
kade, and kagim, overtopped by a number of tall 
deleb palms, the golden fruit of which, half ripe, 
was starting forth from under the feathery foliage. 
