150 DESTRUCTION OF MAHOMMED IIER’S PEOPLE, [chap. v. 
firming the account that Mohammed Her had attacked 
a village on the mountains, the same that Ibrahim had 
intended to attack, and that the natives had exter¬ 
minated their whole party. 
On the following morning I sent ten of my men 
with a party of Ibrahim s to Latome to make inquiries. 
They returned on the following afternoon, bringing 
with them two wounded men. 
It appeared that Mahommed Her had ordered his 
party of 110 armed men, in addition to 300 natives, 
to make a razzia upon a certain village among the 
mountains for slaves and cattle. They had succeeded 
in burning a village, and in capturing a great number 
of slaves. Having descended the pass, a native gave 
them the route that would lead to the capture of a large 
herd of cattle that they had not yet discovered. They 
once more ascended the mountain by a different path, 
and arriving at the kraal, they commenced driving off 
the vast herd of cattle. The Latookas, who had not 
fought while their wives and children were being 
carried into slavery, now fronted bravely against the 
muskets to defend their herds, and charging the Turks, 
they drove them down the pass. 
It was in vain that they fought; every bullet aimed 
at a Latooka struck a rock, behind which the enemy 
was hidden. Bocks, stones, and lances were hurled at 
them from all sides and from above; they were forced 
to retreat. The retreat ended in a panic and preci¬ 
pitate flight. Hemmed in on all sides, amidst a shower 
of lances and stones thrown from the mountain above, 
the Turks fled pdle-mdle, down the rocky and preci¬ 
pitous ravines. Mistaking their route, they came to 
a precipice from which there was no retreat. The 
screaming and yelling savages closed round them. 
Fighting was useless ; the natives, under cover of the 
numerous detached rocks, offered no mark for an aim; 
while the crowd of armed savages thrust them forward 
with wild yells to the very verge of the great pre¬ 
cipice about five hundred feet below. Down they 
