The Arabs lost forty-five of their number, besides their chief; the survivors were in a miserable plight, most of them wounded, some mortally, and all deprived of their camels, and the rest of their property.  Renouncing their pride, they were obliged to supplicate from Barca Gana a handful of corn to keep them from starving.  The sultan of Mandara, in whose cause they had suffered, treated them with the utmost contumely, which, perhaps, they might deserve, but certainly not from him.  Deep sorrow was afterwards felt in Fezzan, when they arrived in this deplorable condition, and reported the fall of their chief, who was there almost idolized.  A national song was composed on the occasion, which the following extract will show to be marked by great depth of feeling, and not devoid of poetical beauty:—­

“Oh trust not to the gun and the sword:  the spear of the unbeliever prevails!

“Boo Khaloom, the good and the brave, has fallen!  Fallen has he in his might!  Who shall now be safe?  Even as the moon amongst the little stars, so was Boo Khaloom amongst men!  Where shall Fezzan now look for her protector?  Men hang their heads in sorrow, while women wring their hands, rending the air with their cries!  As a shepherd is to his flock, so was Boo Khaloom to Fezzan.

“Give him songs!  Give him music!  What words can equal his praise!  His heart was as large as the desert!  His coffers were like the rich overflowings from the udder of the she camel, comforting and nourishing those around him.

“Even as the flowers without rain perish in the field, so will the Fezzaners droop; for Boo Khaloom returns no more.

“His body lies in the land of the heathen! the poisoned arrow of the unbeliever prevails!

“Oh trust not to the gun and the sword!  The spear of the heathen conquers!  Boo Khaloom, the good and the brave, has fallen!  Who shall now be safe?”

The sheik of Bornou was considerably mortified by the result of this expedition, and the miserable figure made by his troops, though he sought to throw the chief blame on the Mandara part of the armament.  He now invited the major to accompany an expedition against the Mungas, a rebel tribe on his outer border, on which occasion he was to employ his native band of Kanemboo spearmen, who, he trusted, would redeem the military reputation of the monarchy.  Major Denham was always ready to go wherever he had a chance of seeing the manners and scenery of Africa.  The sheik took the field, attended by his armour-bearer, his drummer, fantastically dressed in a straw hat with ostrich feathers, and followed by-three wives, whose heads and persons were wrapped up in brown silk robes, and each led by a eunuch.  He was preceded by five green and red flags, on each of which were extracts from the Koran, written in letters of gold.  Etiquette even required that the sultan should follow with his unwieldy pomp, having a harem, and attendance much more numerous; while frumfrums, or wooden trumpets, were continually sounding before him.  This monarch is too distinguished to fight in person; but his guards, the swollen and overloaded figures formerly described, enveloped in multiplied folds, and groaning beneath the weight of ponderous amulets, produced themselves as warriors, though manifestly unfit to face any real danger.