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place had joined the expedition against Káura; and I pitched my tent in front of the house of the ghaladíma, but was invited by the people who were left as guardians to pass the hot hours of the day in the cool entrance-hall of his court-yard. Although the place does not exhibit any great signs of wealth or comfort, I was glad to find that the corn here was much cheaper than in U’mmadaw. I was also enabled to buy some butter. Moreover, the absence of the governor exercised no unfavorable influence upon my treatment, which was very kind: an old m'allem especially evinced a friendly disposition toward me.

Saturday, October 14th. After a march of about fourteen miles, passing by the town of Rawëó, where a small market was held, and traversing the suburb of Sakássar, with its beautiful “ngáboré," or fig-trees, we reached the town of Máje, which had been represented to us as rich in cattle and milk, but which I found half deserted; the town having greatly declined about twelve years previously, when the whole country, including the places Takabawa, Matázu, Korófi, and Kúrkojángo, revolted, and gave free passage to an army of the Góberáwa. I was glad to buy a good sheep for 1500 shells. The governor of the place was absent in Kátsena, where he generally resides. We had pitched our tent in the shade of a beautiful fig-tree, and passed the afternoon very pleasantly, but were greatly troubled during the night by the numbers of musquitoes.

Rising at an early hour, and traversing a fine country, I reached the large town of Kusáda in the afternoon, and encamped here, outside, not far from the market-place, which at the time of my arrival was quite untenanted; but the following night it became well frequented by a number of travelers who sought quarters there. On this march I observed a specimen of industry on a small scale, exercised by the inhabitants of the town of Máje, who buy sour milk in a place called Kánkia, at a considerable distance, and supply the town of Korófi with it. Numerous villages were lying on either side of our path, cultivated and uncultivated ground succeeding alternately, Indian millet being here the chief product besides cotton. The pasture-grounds also were enlivened by a good number of horses.

Pursuing from this point my old road through the fine province of Kanó, rich in all kinds of produce, and well stocked with cattle, and encamping the next night close beyond the town of Bíchi, I reached the town of Kanó in the afternoon of the 17th, having sent one of my people in advance.

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CHAPTER LXXXIII.

SECOND RESIDENCE IN KANO', UNDER UNFAVORABLE CIRCUMSTANCES.—MARCH TO KU'KAWA.

ON my arrival in Kanó I found every thing prepared, and took up my quarters in a house provided for me; but I was greatly disappointed in finding neither letters nor supplies, being entirely destitute of means, and having several debts to pay in this place -among others, the money due to my servants, to whom I had paid nothing during the whole journey from Kúkawa to Timbúktu and back. I was scarcely able to explain how all this could have happened, having fully relied upon finding here every thing I wanted, together with satisfactory information with regard to the proceedings of Mr. Vogel and his companions, whose arrival in Kúkawa I had as yet only accidently learned from a liberated slave in Sókoto. But fortunately, without relying much upon Sídi Ráshid, the man whom I knew to be at the time the agent of her majesty's vice-consul in Múrzuk, I had given my confidence at once to Sídi 'Alí, the merchant whom I have mentioned already in the account of my former stay in this place as a tolerably trustworthy person, and whose good-will I endeavored at once to secure by sacrificing to him almost every thing I had left of value, including a small six-barreled pistol. In return, he promised to supply my wants till I should be put in possession of the money and merchandise which I had deposited in Zínder.

The first thing, therefore, which I had to do the next morning, after having paid my compliments to the ghaladíma and the governor, and made to each of them a handsome present, such as my means would allow, was to send my servant Mohammed el Gatróni, upon whom I could fully rely, to Zínder, giving him full instructions, and promising him a handsome present if he should succeed in bringing away all my effects, both those which had been deposited on a former occasion, and the merchandise which had been forwarded on my account at a later period, and a smaller one in case he should only find the latter portion; for, after all, I was by no means sure that the box of ironware and the four hundred dollars had remained safe during the severe civil struggles which

had agitated Bórnu during my absence. Meanwhile, till the return of this messenger, I endeavored to pass my time as usefully as possible by completing a survey of the town which I had begun during my former residence, but was far from having finished. At the same time, the state of my health, on account of the close quarters in which I was here lodged, after having roved about in the open air for so long a time, required uninterrupted exercise. Owing to the change in my mode of living, severe fits of fever attacked me repeatedly.

Kanó will always remain one of the most unfavorable localities for Europeans in this region; and it was well that Mr. Vogel, for the first year after his arrival in Negroland, purposely avoided this spot. Even my animals did not escape the malignant effect of the climate. Three of my horses were seized, one after the other, with a contagious disease, commencing with a swelling of the thighs, and from thence spreading to the breast and the head, and generally proving fatal in six or eight days. In this way I lost two out of my three horses, including my old companion, who had carried me through so many dangerous campaigns, and who had shared all my fatigues and sufferings for nearly three years; but the small and ugly, but strong horse which the Sultan of Sókoto had made me a present of, escaped with its life. This disease which attacked my horses, of course, interfered greatly with my excursions, and took away almost all the pleasure which they would otherwise have afforded, as I was reduced to the necessity of making use of very indifferent animals. Nevertheless, I enjoyed greatly the open country which extended outside the gates of this picturesque but extremely dirty town, dotted with large villages at no great distance; and I followed up especially, with great interest, the easterly of the three roads which diverge from the Kófa-n-kúra, and which leads to the small rivulet known as the Kógi-n-Kanó. Occasionally, also, I went to visit some cattle-pens, in order to get a little fresh milk, which I was unable to procure in the town; for inside the place I succeeded only after great exertion in obtaining a little goat's milk. The pools produced by the rainy season had now dried up almost every where, and that peculiar kind of sorghum called "maiwa" had been harvested; and a few days afterward, while making another excursion to the south, I met the servants of the governor gathering the corn for their master.

Besides my own private concerns, and the anxiety produced by

WANT OF INFORMATION.

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the urgency of my debts and the uncertainty with regard to the property left by me in Zínder, there were two objects which attracted my whole attention, and caused me a good deal of perplexity and hesitation. The first of these was the expedition sent by the English government up the River Bénuwé, of which I had not the slightest idea at the time when it was carried out, for the dispatches which I had received in Timbúktu, after so much delay, did not contain a word about such a proceeding; and the letters which were forwarded afterward to my address, informing me that such an expedition was to be undertaken, remained in Kúkawa, and I did not get them until my arrival in that place at the end of December. Thus it was not until the 29th of October that, just in the same manner as I had heard accidentally in Sókoto of the arrival of Mr. Vogel in Kúkawa, I was informed here, by the report of the natives, of such an expedition having taken place. I at first thought that it was undertaken by Captain M'Leod, of whose proposal to ascend the Niger I had accidentally gleaned some information through a number of the Galignani, and it was not until the 13th of November that I succeeded in meeting the person who had seen the expedition with his own eyes. This man informed me that the expedition consisted of one large boat, he did not know whether of iron or of wood, and two smaller ones, containing altogether seven gentlemen and seventy slaves, he of course taking the Kroomen for slaves. Moreover, I learned from him that the members of this expedition had not gone as far as Yóla, the capital of A'damáwa, as the Governor of Hamárruwa had warned them not to go up to that place with their steamer, on account of the narrow passage between the mountains. He also informed me that they had commenced their home-journey earlier than had been expected, and that he himself, having proceeded to Yákoba in order to procure more ivory for them, had found them gone on his return.

The other circumstance which greatly occupied my mind at this time was the state of affairs in Kúkawa; for in the beginning, on the first news of the revolution in Bórnu, and of the Sheikh 'Omár being dethroned and his vizier slain, I had given up my project of returning by Bórnu, intending to try again the difficult road by A'ír. At a later season, however, when I heard on the road that 'Omár was again installed, I cherished the hope that it might be possible to take the safer route by the Tebu country, especially as I received the news of a most sanguinary struggle

having taken place between the Kél-owí and the Kél-gerés. In this struggle a great many of the noblest men of the former were said to have fallen, together with several hundred of the common people on both sides. I was sorry to hear that in this struggle my best friends had succumbed.

Meanwhile the news from Kúkawa remained very unsatisfactory, and false rumors were continually brought from thence. Thus it was reported on the 1st of November that the Sugúrti had vanquished 'Omár, who had made his escape accompanied only by a couple of horsemen; and it was not until the 9th that we received trustworthy news that he was holding his position steadily against the intrigues of the party of his brother, whom he kept in prison. It was with great satisfaction that I saw messengers from 'Omár arrive in the course of a few days, in order to present his compliments to the governor of this place. I at once had them called to my house, and made them a few presents, in order to express my satisfaction at their master having recovered his kingdom, and still holding his position; for it was a most important point with me to see my road to Bórnu clear, and to meet there with Mr. Vogel and his party, in order to give him my advice and assistance with respect to the countries which it was most desirable that he should explore. But in the situation in which I was thus placed, it proved most difficult to obtain the means of reaching Kúkawa, as I had no money at my disposal; for, to my great disappointment, the servant whom I had sent to Zínder on the 18th, in order to bring from thence the property which I had deposited there, as well as the merchandise which had arrived afterward, returned on the 4th of November empty-handed, bringing nothing but a few letters. It was now that I heard that the news of my death had been every where believed, and that a servant of Mr. Vogel's, together with a slave of 'Abd e' Rahmán's, had arrived in Zínder from Kúkawa, and had taken away all the merchandise that had reached that place on my account, the box with the 400 dollars and the cutlery having been stolen long before, immediately after the assassination of the sheríf.

Thus, then, I was left destitute also from this side, and I felt the want of supplies the more, as my head man, 'Alí el A'geren, supported by the wording of the contract which I had entered into with him, had claimed here peremptorily the payment of the rest of his salary, which amounted to 111 dollars, and I had been obliged to request Sídi 'Alí to pay him this sum on my account.

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