An officer of the garrison, who gives an account of this hurricane,[45] says: "Describe the appearance of our barracks, I really cannot. This I can say, in truth, that in no part of the world, a more beautiful range of buildings, or on a more liberal scale or appropriate site, could have been found. The establishment was complete in all respects for every branch of a small army. It was the depot of our West India military possessions. Well--in two hours during this awful night almost every building in the garrison was destroyed.... What a moment was that, when, thanks be to Heaven, the gale in some degree abated. The officers crept out one after the other, and the scene that followed can be compared only to that which one sees and feels after an action--who has escaped?--who is dead?... The first person I found wounded was Mrs. Brocklass, the lady of an officer of the 1st West India Regiment, who, with three fine children, finding the roof over them falling, hastened from under it. She had the misfortune to be knocked down by some shingles, received a blow on the head, and had two or three ribs broken; the children fortunately escaped: her husband was on duty in a most perilous situation.... The huts which were the quarters of the married people of the 1st West India Regiment were blown to pieces, and four men and one woman severely injured. The north building of the men's new barracks accommodated the left wing of the 36th Regiment, besides which a detachment of the 1st West India Regiment was quartered on the ground floor. None of the latter were hurt, but two men of the 36th were killed. The greater part of the spacious galleries was carried away, some of the arches that supported them fell, and many were very much broken. None of the roof remains that will ever be of service." Towards the end of the year 1832, numerous complaints were made by native traders who were in the habit of trading to the Sherbro and the adjacent territories, that they were molested and their goods plundered by a marauding party of Mohammedan Acoos, who had established themselves in the vicinity of the Ribbie River. These Acoos were liberated Africans, that is, slaves who had been set free from captured slavers at Freetown, Sierra Leone, and had, contrary to the regulations then in force, clandestinely left the Colony. A party of volunteers, having been despatched to gather information concerning these rebels, ascertained that they had been joined by other parties of marauders, and had established themselves at a place called Cobolo, on the northern bank of the Kates, or Ribbie River. The manager of the Waterloo District also reported various outrages and depredations committed by this band.