— 57 — encircling us with tiieir steeds and hemming us in ever closer and closer. We fought without ceasing from July lOth until August 28th, but in the end we subdued them because in the country of the Rizighat there is no water, so that the enemy were compelled to come down to the rivers in the Bahr el Ghazal; and so we caught them one day at the river Bat-ha, and took from them all that they had. Thus the Rizighat were completely routed, the Shakka country thereby passing wholly beneath my sway.

THE STORY OF ABDULLAHI THE TAAISHI 1873.

Now the Rizighat had made use of the services of a certain Taaishi fiki (i), named Abdullahi wad Mohammed Adam Turshin, in order that he might read out in his school the names that would arrest the bullets of my firearms in war ; in return they agreed to give him a cow from their cowhouses.

This man was among the captives that I caught between Shakka and Dara, and I sentenced him to death. At that time I had with me twelve men learned in the teachings of the Koran, whom I had made swear on the book of the Prophet that they would give me information, whenever they saw that my decisions were not strictly in accordance with (i) i.e. a religious teacher.