repeatedly exclaimed, when urging El Kanemy to send them to some country for slaves, “ Never mind their numbers! arrows are nothing! and ten thousand spears are of no importance. We have guns! guns!” pYflalming, with their favourite imprecations, “ Nakalou-e- kelab fesaa,” (We’ll eat them, the dogs, quickly)—“ eich nu, abeed occul,” (what! why, they are negroes a ll!) I fancied I could see the keen features of El Kanemy curl at these contemptuous expressions, which equally applied to his own people; and certainly nothing could be more galling than for him to hear them from such a handful of Arabs : his own people were abeed(occul, and their only arms spears and arrows, and this he could not but feel and remember. Towards the evening Barca Gana sent to desire me to mount, for the purpose of visiting the sultan. We entered the town, Boo- Khaloom and myself riding on his right and left; and at the farther end of a large square was the sultan’s palace. As is usual on approaching or visiting a great man, we galloped up to the skiffa at full speed, almost entering the gates. This is a perilous sort of salutation, but nothing must stop you; and it is seldom made except at the expense of one or more lives. On this occasion, a man and horse, which stood in our way, were ridden over in an instant, the horse’s leg broke, and the man killed on the spot. The trumpets sounded as-we dismounted at the palace gate; our pa- pouches, or outward slippers, were quickly pulled off; and we proceeded through a wide skiffa, or entrance, into a large court, where, under a dark blue tent of Soudan, sat the sultan, on a mud bench, covered however with a handsome carpet and silk pillows: he was surrounded by about two hundred persons, all handsomely dressed in tobes of silk and coloured cotton, with his five eunuchs; the principal men of the country sitting in front, but all with their backs turned towards him. The manner of saluting is curious: Barca Gana, as the sheikh’s representative, approached to a space in front of the eunuchs, his eyes fixed on the ground; he then sat down, with his eyes still fixed on the earth, with his back to the sultan, and, clapping his hands together, exclaimed, “ Engouborou dagah! (May you live for ever!)—Allah kiaro ! (God send you a happy old age •'—La, lai, barca, barca. (How is it with you ? blessing! blessing!)” These words were repeated nearly by the sultan, and then sung out by all the court. The fatah was then said, and they proceeded to business. Boo-Khaloom produced some presents, which were carried off by the eunuchs unopened; the sultan then expressed his wish to serve him; said he would consider his request, and in a day or two give him his decision. The sultan, whose name was Mohamed Bucker, was an intelligent little man of about fifty, with a beard dyed of a most beautiful sky- blue ; he had been eyeing me for some time, as I sat between Boo- Khaloom and Barca Gana, and first asking Boo-Khaloom his name, inquired who I was ? The answer that I was a native of a very distant and powerful nation, friends of the bashaw of Tripoli and the sheikh, who came to see the country, did not appear much to surprise him; and he looked gracious as he said, | But what does he want to see ? A fatal question however followed, and the answer appeared to petrify the whole assembly :—“ Are they Moslem ?” “ La ! la / ifNo ! n o !) Every eye, which had before been turned towards me, was now hastily withdrawn, and, looking round, I really felt myself in a critical situation. “ Has the great bashaw Kaffir friends?” said the sultan. The explanation which followed was of little use: they knew no distinctions; Christians they had merely heard of as the worst people in the world, and, probably, until they saw us, scarcely believed them to be human. We shortly after returned to our camp, and I never afterwards was invited to enter the sultan of Mandara’s presence. Our tents had been pitched but a short distance from the town of Mora, and on our return upwards of forty slaves, preceded by one of the sultan’s .eunuchs, came to the camp, bearing wooden bowls Q
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