As soon as we left this winding watercourse, we entered a dense forest only occasionally broken by open spots covered with reed grass, and we pursued our march without interruption the whole night, with the exception of a short halt just in the dusk of the evening. I had taken the lead from the beginning; and the ghaladíma, who was fully sensible of the great advantage of my firearms, sent messenger after messenger to me till he brought me to a stand, and thus managed to get all his slaves and camels in advance, so that I could only proceed very slowly. After a march of little more than twelve miles from the korámma, we entered a fertile and picturesque sort of vale, inclosed towards the north and south by rocky cliffs, and intersected by a narrow strip of succulent herbage, where water is apparently to be found at a little depth. This is the site of the town of Moníya, which had likewise been destroyed by the Góberáwa three years previously. Their army had even encamped here the previous day; and when our companions found the traces of their footsteps, which indicated that they had taken an easterly direction, all the people were seized with fright, and the intention which had been entertained, of resting here for a few hours of the night, was given up, and with an advanced guard of twenty horse, and a guard of from fifty to sixty, we kept cautiously and anxiously on. About midnight we again entered dense forest, consisting chiefly of underwood. We marched the whole night, and emerged in the morning into open cultivated country. We then passed several small hamlets, and, crossing first a small and further on a larger watercourse, reached, a little before nine o’clock, the considerable place Búnka, surrounded by a clay wall about twelve feet in height, and by a half natural half artificial stockade of dense forest. In this town, the governor of which is directly dependent upon the ghaladíma of Sókoto, my protector had taken quarters; but, true to my old principle, I here also preferred encamping outside, and, turning round the town, on the south side, along a very winding and narrow passage through dense prickly underwood, I pitched my tent on the west side, in the midst of an open suburb consisting of several straggling groups of huts.