HILL OF THE RUBBERS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9069, 8 February 1908, Page 7

HILL OF THE RUBBERS.

Satisfactory proof is given, in. the report on affairs in Northern Nigeria during the year 1906-7, of the progress made in developing the Protectorate. Mr Wallace, the senior resident states that, generally speaking, travelling is now absolutely safe for man, woman, and child. The only exception i©-this is in the Bassa province and in. certain districts inhabited by more or less truculent pagans elsewhere. The year was a peaceful one, the only military "operation required which calls for special notice being the expedition against the Ohibbuk savages of Margni. Mr Wallace writes:—-“At the end of November the Ohibbuk rocks were attacked by a small force of 170 men, under Lieutenants Chapman and Chaytor. The assault was continued for eleven days, and every occasion on which the troops attacked they suffered some losses. At the end of this time the hills were considered taken, our casualties being two'officers slightly wounded, ten rank and file killed, and 40 wounded; this was the end of the first phase of the operations The bulk of the people had dispersed over the country, but many of ; them had their extraordinary net-work of impenetrable tunnels in the northwestern part of the hills, and refused all submission. Before, during, and after these operations every effort was made to induce the Ohibbuks to come in, but without 8 iccess. The second phase of the operatons bigan when Lieutenant > Wolseley proceeded in mid-December with 80 men to systematically picket the hill. This officer is the only one, so far, who personally knows the wonderful internal formation of this hill. Lieutenant Wolseley, in an attempt to clear the tunnels, had one man killed and 12 wounded, and decided then attacks were futile and much too costly. By the most careful picketing and through the chance discovery of the natural deep water supply, in the centre of the hill, this officer, now late in February, cleared the last man off the rocks. The hillsmon had unlimited food and sufficient water to last jirobably until the rains, and if, as'with more combination might have happened, from 503 to 1000 of [these pagans had held to the tunnels gand taken no risks, no force could have removed them.” After three months’ fighting this robbers’ den was broken up acd the tribes dispersed all over the country.