Chap. XXXVIII. THE TURKS IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 13 
government should endeavour to prevent the governor 
of Fezzan from carrying out the ulterior objects of his 
ambition. At that time I had assured myself that a 
northern road through the desert was not suitable for 
European commerce, and that a practicable highroad* 
leading several hundred miles into the interior of the 
continent and passing to the south of Kano, the great 
commercial entrepot of Central Africa, and only about 
two hundred miles in a straight line to the south of 
Kiikawa, had been found in the river Benuwe. 
With regard to the empire of Sokoto, there hap- 
pened at this time a catastrophe which, while it was 
an unmistakeable proof of the debility of that vast 
agglomeration of provinces, proved at the same time 
extremely favourable to Bornu. For on the 1st of 
August the news arrived that Bowari or Bokhari, the 
exiled governor of Khadeja, who had conquered the 
town and killed his brother, had thrown back, with 
great loss, an immense army sent against him by 
c Aliyu, the emperor of Sokoto, under the command 
of his prime minister, 'Abdu Gedado, and composed of 
the forces of the provinces of Kano, Bauchi, Katigum, 
Marmar, and Boberu, when several hundreds were said 
to have perished in the komadugu, or the great fiumara 
of Bornu. In the spring, while Mr. Overweg was stay- 
ing in Gober, the Mariadawa and Goberawa had made 
a very successful expedition into Zanfara ; and the 
emperor of S6koto could take no other revenge upon 
them, than by sending orders to Kano that my friends 
the Asbenawa, many of whose brethren had taken part 
