March 17.—After breakfast the sultan sent for me; his residence was at no great distance. In front of it there is a large quadrangle, into which several of the principal streets of the city lead. We passed through three coozees, as guardhouses, without the least detention, and were immediately ushered into the presence of Bello, the second sultan of the Felatahs. He was seated on a small carpet, between two pillars supporting the roof of a thatched house, not unlike one of our cottages. The walls and pillars were painted blue and white, in the Moorish taste; and on the back wall was sketched a firescreen, ornamented with a coarse painting of a flower-pot. An arm-chair, with an iron lamp standing on it, was placed on each side of the screen. The sultan bade me many hearty welcomes, and asked me if I was not much tired with my journey from Burderawa. I told him it was the most severe travelling I had experienced between Tripoli and Sackatoo, and thanked him for the guard, the conduct of which I did not fail to commend in the strongest terms. He asked me a great many questions about Europe, and our religious distinctions. He was acquainted with the names of some of the more ancient sects, and asked whether we were Nestorians or Socinians. To extricate myself from the embarrassment occasioned by this question, I bluntly replied we were called Protestants. “ What are Protestants ?” says he. I attempted to explain to him, as well as I was able, that having protested, more than two centuries and a half ago, against the superstition, absurdities, and abuses practised in those days, we had ever since professed to follow simply what was written “ in the book of our Lord Jesus,” as they call the New Testament, and thence received the name of Protestants, He continued to ask several other theological questions, until I was obliged to confess myself not sufficiently versed in religious subtleties to resolve these knotty points, having always left that task to others more learned than myself. He now ordered some books to be produced which belonged to Major Denham, and began to speak with great bitterness of the late Boo Khaloom, for making a predatory inroad into his territories ; adding, in his own words, “ I am sure the bashaw of Tripoli never meant to strike me with one hand, while he offers a present with the other: at least it is a strange way for friends to act. But what was your friend doing there?” he asked abruptly. I assured the sultan, that Major Denham had no other object than to make a short excursion into the country. The books being brought in, proved to be the Nautical Almanack, two Reviews, Lord Bacons Essays, and Major Denham's Journal; all which the sultan returned to me in the most handsome manner. Before taking leave, however, I had to explain the contents of each, and was set to read them, in order to give him an opportunity of hearing the sound of our language, which he thought very beautiful. The sultan is a noble-looking man, forty-four years of age, although much younger in appearance, five feet ten inches high, portly in person, with a short curling black beard, a small mouth, a fine forehead, a Grecian nose, and large black eyes. He was dressed in a light blue cotton tobe, with a white muslin turban, the shawl of which he wore over the nose and mouth in the Tuarick fashion. In the afternoon I repeated my visit, accompanied by the ga- dado, Mahomed El Wordee, and Mahomed Gumsoo, the principal Arab of the city, to whom I had a letter of introduction from Hat Salah at Kano. The sultan was sitting in the same apartment in which he received me in the morning. 1 now laid before him a present, in the name of His Majesty the King of England, consisting of two new blunderbusses highly ornamented with silver, the double- barrelled pistols, pocket-compass, and embroidered jacket of the late Dr. Oudney; a scarlet bornouse trimmed with silver lace, a pair of scarlet breeches, thirty yards of red silk, two white, two red, and two Egyptian turban shawls, the latter trimmed with gold; four m 2
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