, through
a well-peopled country, without meeting with any opposition till he came
to the mountains of Bokki, inhabited by Pagans, the followers of
the chief who had rejected the Pasha's letter. They were posted on a
mountain of difficult access; but their post was stormed, and after a
desperate struggle, they found that spears and swords, though wielded by
stout hearts and able hands, were not a match for fire-arms. They fled
to another mountain, rearward of their first position. They were again
attacked by cannon and musketry, and obliged to fly toward a third
position: in their flight, they were in part hemmed in by the cavalry
of Cogia Achmet, and about fifteen hundred of them put to the sword.
Those who escaped took refuge in a craggy mountain, inaccessible to
cavalry. Cogia Achmet, believing he had made a sufficient proof to them
that resistance on their part was unavailing, and the troops having
suffered great distress by reason of the almost continual rains, after
sweeping the villages of these people of all the population they could
find in them, resumed his march for Sennaar. On their return, they had
to ford several deep streams, at this season running from the mountains,
and both horse and man were almost worn out before they reached Sennaar.

The people of Bokki are a hardy race of mountaineers--tall, stout, and
handsome. They are Pagans, worshippers of the sun, which planet they
consider it as profane to look at. The prisoners brought in by Cogia
Achmet resembled in their dress the savages of America; they were almost
covered with beads, bracelets, and trinkets, made out of pebbles, bones,
and ivory. Their complexion is almost black, and their manners and
deportment prepossessing. The arms of these people gave me great
surprise: they consisted of well-formed and handsome helmets of iron,
coats of mail, made of leather and overlaid with plates of iron, long
and well fashioned lances, and a hand-weapon exactly resembling the
ancient bills formerly used in England by the yeomanry. They were
represented to me by the Turks as dangerous in personal combat. They had
never seen fire-arms before, and they nevertheless withstood them
with great intrepidity. They said, I was informed, that a fusee was "a
coward's weapon, who stands at a safe distance from his enemy, and kills
him by an invisible stroke."[65]

On the 17th, the courier carrying the information to Cairo of this
expedition and its results, embarked in a