Note 65 — Chapter XXXV · THE MEETING OF THE WATERS.—THE BÉNUWÉ AND FÁRO.

I leave this passage as it stood in my journal, although it describes a state of things which now, in 1857, belongs to the past. This stronghold also has at length been taken by the intruders, and the seat of happiness and independence converted into a region of desolation. In 1853, two years after my journey to Ádamáwa, Mohammed Láwl left his residence with a great host, having sworn not to return before he had reduced Bágelé. After a siege of almost two months, with the assistance of a few muskets, he succeeded in conquering the mountaineers, and reducing them to slavery. The chief of the pagans of the Bágelé, who belong to the Bátta tribe, in the height of his power exercised paramount authority over the neighbouring tribes, and is said to have even had the “jus primæ noctis.”