On the 28th, however, the struggle commenced. The Begharmis became bold in consequence of the sheikh’s apparent unwillingness to fight, and they at length ventured to attack him in the plain to the south-east of Angala, on the edge of which he had halted. The kafila, which had departed for Soudan, had deprived him of at least thirty of his Arabs; and the few that remained, with some forty Musgow slaves, who had been trained to the firelock, being his great dependence, he placed them on his flanks. No sooner had the Begharmis cleared the wood, than the sheikh, hoisting his green flag in the centre, and surrounded by his Kanemboo spearmen, moved rapidly on: the two guns in front, which Hillman had mounted, with the Arabs and musketeers, right and left of them. The Begharmis, also, came on with great coolness in a solid mass, five thousand strong, with two hundred chiefs at their head: they made directly for the centre, where the sheikh had raised the standard of the Prophet, but were repulsed by a discharge from his artillery: they now fell upon Barca Gana’s flank, which was attacked with such determined bravery, that all, except himself and a chosen band, gave way: and here fell my friend and preserver Maramy, who, while in the act of drawing his spear from the body of one of their chiefs, received a thrust in his own, which went quite through him. The Bornouese horse, who, on occasions of this kind, when the road is opened for them, are most active, now took up the pursuit of the routed Begharmis: the Arabs, also, mounted and joined them; and of the two hundred chiefs of Begharmi one only is said to have escaped alive. Seven sons of the sultan were amongst the killed, and seventeen hundred of less note; whilst great numbers were put to death by the people of the towns to which they fled, who now, as if by magic, all became the stanch friends of the sheikh. The water of the little stream, Gambalarum, near which the battle was fought, also lent its aid in destroying these invaders; and many were drowned in attempting its passage: but above all, “The guns! the guns! the guns! Oh, wonderful! how they made the dogs skip!—Oh, the guns!” were words in every body’s mouth. My friend, the sheikh, however, thought there was a little too much of this, for on the second day, he said, “True, the guns are wonderful, ’tis true!—but I lifted my hands, and said, _Sidi absolam, sidi abdel garda!_ and from that moment the victory was yours.” It is said that, on the morning of the battle, the sheikh appeared at the door of his tent, with the English double-barrelled gun in his hand, and his English sword slung over his shoulders, clothed in the dress of a simple trooper, saying it was his intention to fight on foot, at the head of his Kanemboos;—that he expected all the Arabs to follow his example, and encourage the slaves, who were but young in the use of the firelock: that if it pleased God to grant their