"Such occasions as this test the discipline of a corps in a high degree, the more so when, as in the present instance, the danger of an explosion from the proximity of the flames to the magazine was imminent. "Where all were zealous, the conduct of Ensign Bourke, 1st West India Regiment, was most conspicuous, who, assisted by Company Sergeant-Major Mason and a party of four men of the regiment, placed wet blankets on the most exposed portion of the roof of the magazine, which was then actually ignited; and it will be most gratifying to Lieutenant-Colonel Bourchier to bring the circumstance under the notice of H.R.H. the General Commanding-in-Chief." At the Gambia nothing of moment had occurred since 1807, with the exception that a violent epidemic of fever broke out at Bathurst in September, 1859, to which one officer and several men of the regiment succumbed. CHAPTER XXIV. THE BADDIBOO WAR, 1860-61. The next active operations in which the 1st West India Regiment was engaged, took place at the Gambia, where the King of Baddiboo, an important Mohammedan state up the river, had in August and September, 1860, plundered the factories of several British traders, and afterwards refused to pay compensation. The Governor of the Gambia, Colonel D'Arcy, resolved to blockade the kingdom of Baddiboo, in the hope that the enforced suspension of trade would compel the king to come to terms, and, on October 10th, 1860, the gunners of the companies of the 1st West India Regiment stationed at Bathurst embarked in the barque _Elm_ and the schooner _Shamrock_, to close all the Baddiboo river ports. On November 3rd additional gunners were sent in the schooner _Hope_, and the blockade was strictly enforced, the natives not being allowed to export any articles of produce or import anything. While the blockade was still in force, the wing of the 2nd West India Regiment, which had been wrecked in the troopship _Perseverance_ at Maio, one of the Cape Verde Islands, while on its way to relieve the wing of the 1st West India Regiment, arrived in West Africa in various vessels, three companies at the Gambia and three at Sierra Leone; and as in January, 1861, the blockade had manifestly failed in its object of inducing the King of Baddiboo to indemnify the plundered merchants, Governor D'Arcy determined to take advantage of the presence of an unusual number of regular troops to organise a formidable expedition; which step was rendered necessary from the fact that the numerous Mohammedan tribes around the settlement and on the banks of the river were narrowly watching events, and had, owing to the long delay in punishing the King of Baddiboo, already commenced to show signs of lawlessness.