The British have sustained a disagreeable reverse on the 'Gambia.
A slave-raiding chief named Fodi Silah, said to !be a Mandingo by birth, has been giving great trouble both to the English and French, on a strip of land between their territories. Instigated partly by their own wrongs and partly by complaints from the French, the authorities on the Gambia despatched Captain Gamble, R.N., with 200 Blue- jackets collected from the gunboats off the station, to read the raiding chief a lesson. They were opposed on their march forward, but were successful, burned two villages, and returned to their boats. Fodi Silah, however, had despatched his best armed men to cut them off, and favoured by the high grass, they, as the British reached the boats, poured in a heavy fire. The British replied, but were compelled to retreat, with a loss of three officers killed end ten men ; six officers wounded, one "dangerously," and froa forty to fifty men. Fodi Silah next attacked a supporting party under Colonel CorlYet, but earthworks had been thrown up and he was driven back. Reinforcements are hurrying up from Simon's Bay and Sierra Leone, and as soon as force enough has been collected, Fodi Silah will again be attacked in earnest, the French lining their frontier with troops in order to cut off his retreat. The cause of the disaster appears to hare been carelessness, produced by the usual contempt, not so much for the courage, as for the strategy of black foes. Englishmen are too apt to forget the violent difference between average dark men and their leaders as to quality of brain.
