he people
then pulled off my boots, and burst out into an involuntary exclamation
of astonishment when they saw my white leg under my stocking. My face
and hands are both pretty well tanned, and the quality of the European
skin is not so visible as in the parts of the body covered. His highness
then inquired whether there was war in Europe, and whether peace existed
between England and the Porte. He was very anxious to continue his
questions, but there being two or three hundred persons present, he was
obliged to defer them till the evening. I was much gratified with the
sight. It was really a scene of African state, but without deformities.
There was no blood, no slaying of victims, no abject ceremonies; nothing
to offend the eye of the European. We merely saw, seated on a raised
platform, a black, robed in barbaric style of splendour, with a hundred
courtiers and officers squatted on the ground him, all humble beings,
but not abject.

On returning, his highness sent our caravan four bullocks, to be
slaughtered for our use. To-day was market-day, but there was no stock
of consequence here, there being little foreign commerce. There may be a
score of foreign merchants, nearly all from Fezzan, but they are mere
traders, and only bring a few things for the Sultan and his chief
officers. These merchants say that there is no money here, nor, indeed,
in Bornou.

The place for money is Kanou. All the wealth of Central Africa is,
according to them, concentrated there. Kanou is, in fact, the London of
Soudan. I asked a merchant here, who was accounted rich; that is, who
was a _Maidukia_? He replied, "One with property to the amount of a
thousand dollars." Even a man with five hundred is accounted a somebody.
Such is the estimate of wealth here. I expect to find all Bornou
miserably poor.

In the evening I waited again on his highness, according to appointment.
He had descended from his throne, and divested himself of all his
splendour, being now dressed in a plain tobe and burnouse. He received
us squatted on a carpet upon the ground, in an inner court, and reminded
me much of a stage king who had undressed after the performance. I
produced all my wonderful things to amuse his highness,--my compass,
spyglass, kaleidoscope, spectacles, peepshow, &c. In this way I amused
him for an hour, he the while asking questions about my personal habits.
Our people then told him the sovereign of England was a woman. "_Kamo?_"
To which I