Chap. XXX. 
HIS LENIENCY. 
295 
during my stay in Bornu, for my intimacy with him 
might very easily have involved me also in the calamities 
which befell him. However, I repeat that altogether 
he was a most excellent, kind, liberal, and just man, 
and might have done much good to the country, if he 
had been less selfish and more active. He was incapable, 
indeed, of executing by himself any act of severity, 
such as in the unsettled state of a semi-barbarous 
kingdom may at times be necessary ; and, being 
conscious of his own mildness, he left all those 
matters to a man named Lammo, to whom I gave 
the title of " the shameless left hand of the vizier," 
and whom I shall have frequent occasion to mention. 
I pressed upon the vizier the necessity of defending 
the northern frontier of Bornu against the Tawarek 
by more effectual measures than had been then adopt- 
ed, and thus retrieving, for cultivation and the peace- 
able abode of his fellow-subjects, the fine borders of the 
komadugu, and restoring security to the road toFezzan. 
Just about this time the Tawarek had made another 
expedition into the border-districts on a large scale^ 
so that Kashella Belal, the first of the war chiefs, 
was obliged to march against them ; and the road to 
Kano, which I, with my usual good luck, had passed 
unmolested, had become so unsafe that a numerous 
caravan was plundered, and a well-known Arab mer- 
chant, the sherif el Ghali, killed. 
I remonstrated with him on the shamefully neglected 
state of the shores of the lake, which contained the 
finest pasture-grounds, and might yield an immense 
u 4 
