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At length, escaping from greedy rulers, hostile populations, wild beasts, swamps, rains and fevers, he at length reached Bundi, near Kouka, on the 30th of November.
All the Arab merchants, not prevented by sickness, who had travelled with him from Kouka, came to see him, looking more like ghosts than men, as almost all strangers at the time were suffering from intermittent fever.
In a few days, an invitation was sent to them to visit the shiek of Bornou, at Kouka. On their way, they passed the Yeou, a stream about fifty yards broad, which flows into the lake. Two canoes, constructed of planks fastened together with cords, and capable of holding about thirty men in each, lay upon the banks, for the transport of goods and passengers.
These letters pressed Boo Khaloom to continue his march towards Kouka, with all his people, a very great proof of his confidence in the peaceable disposition of their chief. In the evening of the same day, they reached a town called Burwha. It is walled, and it was the first negro one they had seen.
On the 2nd of March, Denham returned to Kouka, and on the 20th of May, he was witness to the arrival of Lieutenant Tyrwhitt, who had come to take up his residence as consul at the court of Bornou, bearing costly presents for the sultan.
Barca Gana then strongly advised him to return to Kouka, showing that his hopes of getting to the east would certainly be disappointed. A little sheikh, who had arrived from Fezzan, endeavoured to poison the mind of El Kanemy against the English, telling him that they had conquered India and probably fully intended to attack Bornou.
During his residence at Kouka and Angornou, Major Denham frequently attended the markets, where besides the proper Bornouese, he saw the Shouass, an Arab tribe, who are the chief breeders of cattle; the Kanemboos from the north, with their hair neatly and tastefully plaited, and the Musgow, a southern clan of the most savage aspect.
After meeting with numerous adventures and exposed to many dangers, on the 8th of July he reached Kouka, when he found that Major Denham was absent on a journey to the east side of the Chad. Hillman, the carpenter, was busily employed in finishing a covered cart, to be used as a carriage for the sheikh's wives.
The eighty miles between Mora and Kouka were traversed in six days. Denham was kindly received in the latter town by the sultan, who sent him a native garment to replace his lost wardrobe.
The country round Kouka is uninteresting and flat, thickly covered with acacias. The ruins of old Birnie, which they visited, convinced them of the power of its former sultan. The city, though now in ruins, covered a space of five or six square miles. The walls, in many places standing, consisted of large masses of red brickwork, three or four feet in thickness, and six to eight in height.
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