strong stockades. The Mendis opened fire from their “war-fences,” and
the friendly chief and his followers at once took to flight, carrying
away with them the axes with which the Commandant had intended cutting
his way into the place. Nothing daunted, however, by this desertion,
he broke through the first and second gates of the stockades, ten
policemen, who were old soldiers, alone following him. Between the
second and third stockades they were met with a heavy fire that
killed four policemen almost at once, and wounded the Commandant
very severely; and the latter, seeing that it would be mere folly to
persevere longer, retired with the remnant of his men to Conconany;
being again attacked by an ambuscade on his way there, and wounded a
third time with several of his men.
In consequence of this a force consisting of a detachment of the First
West India Regiment and a body of armed police left Freetown for
Sherbro with Lieutenant-Governor Rowe; a number of stockaded towns were
shelled and burned, the leaders of the invading Mendis captured, and
order restored. The defences of some of these towns were, considering
the difficult nature of the country, formidable. Ordinarily they were
surrounded by triple stockades, 20 feet high, and formed of posts about
10 inches in diameter. A space some 20 feet broad intervened between
each stockade, nor were the entrances of these opposite each other. The
town of Tyama-Woro was further fortified by two encircling mud-walls,
15 feet high and 12 feet thick at the base, inside which were two broad
and deep ditches. In some of the towns machicoulis galleries had been
constructed over the gates, and the entrance further protected by
semicircular flanking bastions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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