After the visit of Nachtigal the country was visited by no European traveller until 1892, when Colonel P.L. Monteil resided for a time at Kuka during his great journey from the Senegal to Tripoli. The French traveller noticed many signs of decadence, the energy of the people being sapped by luxury, while a virtual anarchy prevailed owing to rivalries and intrigues among members of the royal family. The chief of Zinder had ceased to pay tribute, and the sultan was not strong enough to exact it by force. At the same time a danger was threatening from the south-east, where the negro adventurer Rabah, once a slave of Zobeir Pasha, was menacing the kingdom of Bagirmi. After making himself master of the fortified town of Manifa, Rabah proceeded against Bornu, defeating the army of the sultan Ahsem in two pitched battles. In December 1893 Ahsem fled from Kuka, which was entered by Rabah and soon afterwards destroyed, the capital being transferred to Dikwa in the south-east of the kingdom. These events ruined for many years the trade between Tripoli and Kuka by the long-established route via Bilma. Rabah had raised a large, well-drilled army, and proved a formidable opponent to the French in their advance on Lake Chad from the south. However in 1900 he was killed at Kussuri near the lower Shari, by the combined forces of three French expeditions which had been converging from the Congo, the Sahara and the Niger. Entry: BORNU
LIPPE, a river of Germany, a right-bank tributary of the Rhine. It rises near Lippspringe under the western declivity of the Teutoburger Wald, and, after being joined by the Alme, the Pader and the Ahse on the left, and by the Stever on the right, flows into the Rhine near Wesel, after a course of 154 m. It is navigable downwards from Lippstadt, for boats and barges, by the aid of twelve locks, drawing less than 4 ft. of water. The river is important for the transport facilities it affords to the rich agricultural districts of Westphalia. Entry: LIPPE