between high mountains. The river at Kano is not the same; indeed, believes it is only a lake, and no river.” This information, as far as it goes, may, I conceive, be relied on. Unlike nearly all the Moorish traders, who are often tutored by others, who have been rewarded for describing probably what even they never saw, and come prepared to say any thing that will best please you, this lad undoubtedly had never been questioned by any one previous to his answering my inquiries: he knew but little Arabic, and had scarcely been noticed in his long journeys, during which he had been handed over from one kafila to another. He left Kouka in the month of August, in company with an old fighi, for Waday, with a small leather bag of parched corn, and a bottle for his water. I gave him a dollar to pay for his passage across the Bed Sea, which he sewed up in his sheep’s skin: I however heard afterwards, that he had been drowned in crossing one of the branches of the Tchad. My informant was a Waday Shouaa: but if they found out that he had the dollar, he was most likely murdered for the sake of such a booty. CHAPTEE V. RAINY SEASON AT KOUKA. T h e sheikh gave us an interview in his garden this afternoon : the lemon and fig trees exhibited some fruit, the appearance of which was gratifying. - Knowing we had news from England, he asked several questions about the Morea, where the Greeks and Turks had been fighting. He had read some account of the former splendour of that country, and he was pleased with some of the corroborations we gave him of their truth. He again started the subject of the shape of the globe, and wished to be acquainted with the method in which its shape had been ascertained: some of his books, he said, made it square. A phosphorus box, which had been brought him from Tripoli, and of which he knew not the use, was now produced, and on the match coming out lighted, himself and all the spectators were delighted beyond measure. I was this morning going on a hunting excursion to the Tchad with some Shouaas of Beni Hassan, but as it was.Sunday I postponed my sport: they however went, and brought back a very young elephant, not more than two feet and a half high, and yet so powerful, that three men were obliged to hold him for the purpose of pouring a little milk down his throat. Achmet-ben-Sheneen, an Arab of Augela, a wretched sufferer, came constantly to the Doctor for medicine; and on seeing him we could not refrain from blessing God’s providence in our misery, for sparing us from such afflictions as had fallen upon him. Nearly two years before, in an action with La Sala Shouaas, whom the sheikh conquered, this poor fellow had received three dreadful wounds; one in the head, which had left a
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