Chap. XXVI. BOKIIA'ki'S EXPLOITS. 177 
the whole military force of the empire of Sokoto, 
which was led on by the vizier in person, 'Abdu the 
son of Gedado, Clapperton's old friend, but spread 
terror and devastation to the very gates of Kano. 
Indeed, on my second journey through these regions, 
I shall have the sad duty of describing the state of 
misery into which districts, which on my former visit 
I had found flourishing and populous, had been 
reduced by this warlike chieftain, who instead of 
founding a strong kingdom and showing himself a 
great prince, chose rather, like most of his country- 
men, to base his power on the destruction and de- 
vastation of the country around him, and to make 
himself a slave-dealer on a grand scale. Tens of 
thousands of unfortunate people, pagans as well as 
Mohammedans, unprotected in their wellbeing by 
their lazy and effeminate rulers, have from the hands 
of Bokhari passed into those of the slave-dealer, and 
have been carried away from their native home into 
distant regions. 
Kept in alarm by the drumming, and making some 
not very tranquillizing reflections on the weakness of 
our little band, which consisted of three men and a 
boy, in the turbulent state of the country through 
which we were passing, we continued silently on, while 
the character of the landscape had nothing peculiarly 
adapted to cheer the mind. Cultivation beginning to 
cease, nothing was to be seen but an immense level 
tract of country covered with the monotonous Ascle- 
pias gigantea, with only a single poor Balanites now 
VOL. II. N 
