ENTERTAINING VARIETIES. 689 



brought them to a full stop. The Khundi chieftain, however, received 

 them hospitably, and, being on trading terms with the Gallas, offered 

 to mediate the ransom of the merchants. Pending these negotiations, 

 the Tripolitan commander had to go into camp, and now and then led 

 a hunting expedition to the western Sierras, while the doctor tried to 

 requite the hospitality of the Fants by nursing the sick of the chief- 

 tain's household. His success gradually extended his practice to a 

 rather undesired degree, since the messengers from the highland set- 

 tlements kept him nearly all day in the saddle ; but during one of 

 these trips Dr. Sheytan crossed the main ridge of the Moon Mountains, 

 and in the ultramontane valleys discovered such a remarkable race of 

 autochthones that he considered the Khundi-town delay the luckiest 

 accident of his life. 



The Monakees, or inhabitants of the western Moon Mountains, ap- 

 pear to be unlike any other race of the known world. In mechanical 

 arts advanced far beyond their neighbors, they are at the same time 

 addicted to most preposterous habits and superstitions. With the aid 

 of an interpreter, and his knowledge of the Fant- Arabian dialects, the 

 Hakim interviewed their priests and medicine-men, inspected their 

 dwellings, caves, and temples, and visited many of their outlying vil- 

 lages, and continued his investigations even after his official duties had 

 recalled him to Khundabad. For the Khundi chieftain, in the mean 

 while, had ascertained the whereabouts of the captive traders, and 

 finally effected their release, and after the end of the next rainy season 

 the Tripolitans returned to Darfoor, where the Hakim took charge of 

 the sick, and employed his leisure in writing the chronicle of his 

 discovery. This chronicle, addressed to his kinsman, the mollah of 

 Tripoli, gives a circumstantial description of the Monakee race, their 

 habits, physical peculiarities, and singular superstitions interpersed 

 with an account of his personal adventures and of the reflections 

 which occurred to him while traveling through their country. "The 

 work abounds with incidents and graphic descriptions," says the re- 

 viewer of the first German translation, " as well as with scientific dis- 

 closures that throw a suggestive light on the origin of the customs and 

 vices of civilized life." Besides his first professional trips across the 

 frontier, the Hakim seems to have spent nearly eight months among 

 the Monakees, collecting information on all possible topics, interview- 

 ing the just and watching the wicked, traveling from village to vil- 

 lage, often at the risk of his life, but always sustained by the convic- 

 tion that " Allah had appointed him to perform this work," and the 

 hope that the world would recognize its importance. 



The result has fully justified that hope. Even the first rumor of 

 the discovery created a general sensation at Tunis, and was repeatedly 

 discussed during the October sessions of the Vienna Geographical So- 

 ciety, though it was not yet positively known that the explorer had 

 crossed the western frontier of Khun-Fandistan ; but the controversies 

 vol. xx. 44 



