520 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XXXVII. 
This memorable campaign having proceeded from 
Bubanjidda, none of the people of A'damawa, whose 
acquaintance I was able to make during my short 
stay in the country, had participated in it, so that 
all the accounts which I received of it were extremely 
vague. The expedition, after a march of almost 
two months, is said to have reached an unbounded 
expanse of unbroken plain, and, having kept along 
it for a day or two, to have arrived at an immense 
tree, in the shade of which the whole host found 
sufficient room. Here they found two natives of 
the southern regions, who informed them that they 
were the subjects of a powerful queen that resided in 
a vast town of two days' march in circumference. 
These people, they say, were of short stature, and 
wore long beards. Frightened by these reports, and 
by the waterless tract before them, the expedition 
retraced their steps. Similar reports with regard to 
a very powerful female sovereign towards the south 
are also current in Bagirmi and all the adjacent 
country; but I am not able to determine whether 
they originate in faint rumours, spread so far north, 
of the powerful kingdom of Muata-ya-Nvo, or — of 
Queen Victoria. 
To my great satisfaction, we were obliged to stay 
here the next day, in order to await the arrival of the 
lamido, when, feeling greatly recruited by a good 
night's and half a day's rest, I crept out of my well- 
polished round little clay hut in the afternoon, and, 
crossing the neatly-fenced promenade of the straggling 
