reported, some mounting up to twenty pairs of swivel-guns on cross-beams at intervals of five or six feet. In 1841, the ruler of Abo was reported to muster some 300 canoes, many armed with muskets and bow/stern cannons. Some canoe fleets however relied on traditional weapons. On Lake Chad in the early 19th century the piratical Buduna fielded a fleet of some 1,000 reed canoes, using spears and shields for armament, and in East Africa, native kingdoms sometimes vied for supremacy with large numbers of canoes on the region's great lakes. In the Niger Delta, the bigger Itsekiri war canoes mounted multiple cannon and swivels, and carried 40 rowers and 100 warriors, with slaves doing most of the rowing duties. Slaves were also tasked with providing food for the canoe men. Commerce sometimes operated closely with war-making. Itsekiri traders operated their own fleets of fighting vessels, and the British navy was often unable to stop these fast-moving warrior-merchants as they flitted between the streams, lagoons and waterways of the Delta. On several occasions they fended off British warships by blockading narrow creeks and waterways, and in disputes with the colonial regime or European merchants, shut down trade on the Benin river for several months. Pirates also made use of fast canoes to plague commerce and local citizenry alike. War-canoe ports were often fortified with extensive stockades, and multiple trench lines, behind which teams of gunmen and other fighters were marshalled for defense. Some European slave-traders and their allies also made use of big canoes in their operations, plying the waterways in heavy vessels backed with musketeers and armed with small cannon, as they collected their human cargo for transport to the Americas. Naval developments mirror those on land. New technology like firearms was adapted and shaped to existing indigenous politics, technology and forms of organization. The landscape also played its part- limiting major, long-term water movement by rivers that were unnavigable for long stretches, contrary currents, and lack of good coastal harbors. Few native powers attempted any significant upgrades involving intensive sailing technology, or took to the oceans with long-distance ships in the European, Polynesian or Chinese manner. No African equivalent of the famous, ocean-spanning Chinese fleet admiral Cheng Ho was to emerge, although a number of inland captains rose to prominence. The days of Carthage long gone, African naval power remained primarily a localized phenomenon. Land warfare in the