divine mission, and declared a Jehad or holy war against all infidels.  Thousands flocked to his banner, influenced largely by the hope of booty; and ere long, to quote the language of a lay correspondent of the London Standard, written in Sierra Leone September 18, 1888, “he became the scourge of all the peaceable states on the right bank of the Upper Niger.”  Since 1882 he has attempted to dispute the territorial claims of the French on the upper, and of the English on the lower Niger, though without success.  But he has seemed to avenge his disappointment the more terribly on the native tribes.

The letter published in the Standard gives an account of an official commission sent by the Governor of Sierra Leone to the headquarters of Samadu in 1888, and in describing the track of this Western Mahdi in his approaches to the French territories it says:  “The messengers report that every town and village through which they passed was in ruins, and that the road, from the borders of Sulimania to Herimakono, was lined with human skeletons, the remains of unfortunates who had been slain by Samadu’s fanatical soldiery, or had perished from starvation through the devastation of the surrounding country.  Some of these poor wretches, to judge from the horrible contortions of the skeletons, had been attacked by vultures and beasts of prey while yet alive, and when too near their lingering death to have sufficient strength to beat them off.  Around the ruined towns were hundreds of doubled-up skeletons, the remains of prisoners who, bound hand and foot, had been forced upon their knees, and their heads struck off.  Keba, the heroic Bambara king, is still resisting bravely, but he has only one stronghold (Siaso) left, and the end cannot now be far off.”

Samadu’s career in this direction having been arrested, he next turned his attention toward the tribes under English protection on the southeast, “where, unfortunately, there was no power to take up the cause of humanity and arrest his progress.  Before long he entirely overran and subjected Kouranko, Limbah, Sulimania, Kono, and Kissi.  The most horrible atrocities were committed; peaceable agriculturists were slaughted in thousands, and their women and children carried off into slavery.  Falaba, the celebrated capital of Sulimania, and the great emporium for trade between Sierra Leone and the Niger, was captured and destroyed; and all the inhabitants of that district, whom every traveller, from Winwood Reade down to Dr. Blyden, has mentioned with praise for their industry and docility, have been exterminated or carried off.  Sulimania, which was the garden of West Africa, has now become a howling wilderness.”