188 
FROM KANO TO SOCCATOO. 
shield, an Arab musket, brace of pistols, blunderbuss, sword and 
dagger. The other two, Abdelkrim, and Beni Omar, armed with 
musket, pistols, sword, and dagger. Abdelkrim was mounted ; 
Omar on foot, who received a ball from the Coonia musket, which 
carried away his cartouche box, with all his ammunition, early in 
the attack. The other two, Hameda and Abdelkrim, kept behind 
the sultan and Gadado the whole of the action, and always joined 
lustily in the cry of “ Allaliu Akber.” Once Hameda asked me, 
when I was near him, why I did not join in the cry: was it not a 
good place ? I told him to hold his peace for a fool : my God 
understood English as well as Arabic. 
The most useful, and as brave as any one of us, was an old 
female slave of the sultan’s, a native of Zamfra, five of whose 
former governors she said she had nursed. She was of a dark 
copper colour. In dress and countenance very like one of 
Captain Lyon’s female Esquimaux. She was mounted on a 
long-backed bright bay horse, with a scraggy tail, crop-eared, 
and the mane as if the rats had eaten part of it ; and he was 
not in high condition. She rode a-straddle; had on a conical 
straw dish-cover for a hat, or to shade her face from the sun, a 
short dirty white bedgown, a pair of dirty white loose and wide 
trowsers, a pair of Houssa boots, which are wide, and came up 
over the knee, fastened with a string round the waist. She had also a 
whip and spurs. At her saddle-bow hung about half a dozen gourds, 
filled with water, and a brass basin to drink out of ; and with this 
she supplied the wounded and the thirsty. I certainly was much 
obliged to her, for she twice gave me a basin of water. The heat and 
dust made thirst almost intolerable. Numbers went into the shade 
as they got tired, and also to drink at the river. When it drew 
near sunset the sultan dismounted, and his shield was held over 
him for a shade. In this way we continued until sunset, when 
the sultan mounted. We left the walls of Coonia for the camp. 
