The road to Mandara formed a continual ascent through a fertile country, which contained some populous towns.  The path being quite overgrown with thick and prickly underwood, twelve pioneers went forward with long poles, opening a track, pushing back the branches, and giving warning to beware of holes.  These operations they accompanied with loud praises of Barca Gana, calling out, “Who is in battle like the rolling of thunder?  Barca Gana.  In battle, who spreads terror around him like the buffalo in his rage?  Barca Gana.”  Even the chiefs on this expedition carried no provisions, except a paste of rice, flour, and honey, with which they contented themselves, unless when sheep could be procured; in which case, half the animal, roasted over a frame-work of wood, was placed on the table, and the sharpest dagger present was employed in cutting it into large pieces, to be eaten without bread or salt.  At length they approached Mora, the capital of Mandara.  This was another kingdom, which the energy of its present sultan had rescued from the yoke of the Fellata empire; and the strong position of its capital, enclosed by lofty ridges of hills, had enabled it to defy repeated attacks.  It consists of a fine plain, bordered on the south by an immense and almost interminable range of mountains.  The eminences directly in front were not quite so lofty as the hills of Cumberland, but bold, rocky, and precipitous, and distant summits appeared towering much higher, and shooting up a line of sharp pinnacles, resembling the Needles of Mont Blanc.  It was reported that two months were required to cross their greatest breadth, and reach the other side, where they rose ten times higher, and were called large moon mountains.  They there overlooked the plain of Adamowa, through which a great river, that has erroneously been supposed to be the Quorra or Niger, was said to flow from the westward.  The hills immediately in view were thickly clustered with villages perched on their sides, and even on their tops, and were distinctly seen from the plain of Mandara.  They were occupied by half-savage tribes, whom the ferocious bigotry of the nations in the low country branded as pagans, and whom they claimed a right to plunder, seize, and drive in crowds for sale to the markets of Fezzan and Bornou.  The fires, which were visible, in the different nests of these unfortunate beings, threw a glare upon the bold rocks and blunt promontories of granite by which they were surrounded, and produced a picturesque and somewhat awful appearance.  A baleful joy beamed on the visage of the Arabs, as they eyed these abodes of their future victims, whom they already fancied themselves driving in bands across the desert.  “A Kerdy village to plunder!” was all their cry, and Boo Khaloom doubted not that he would be able to gratify their wishes.  Their common fear of the Fellatas had united the sultan of Mandara in close alliance with the sheik, to whom he had lately married his daughter; and the nuptials had been celebrated by a great slave-hunt amongst the mountains, when, after a dreadful struggle, three thousand captives, by their tears and bondage, furnished out the materials of a magnificent marriage festival.