ENTERTAINING VARIETIES. 691 



9th-16th), when the last messenger departed from our camp at Khun- 

 dabad. 



After the recovery of his imam, Sheik Kedar (the Khundi chief- 

 tain) treated me with great kindness, and urged me to remove ray 

 tent to his cottage-yard ; but I had set my heart on visiting the towns 

 of the Monakees, and the plan moved my soul night and day, espe- 

 cially when the Fanti traders gave me to understand that the emir 

 was anxious to see me, and was going to send me a guide and a travel- 

 ing present. Our commander considered that report as an idle rumor, 

 but on the last day of the Alms-week our doubts were removed by 

 the arrival of a messenger with a grace-firman (safe-conduct) of the 

 Monghistan emir, whose son had been stricken with a sore disease, 

 and who (supposing that I had entered the service of the Fants) be- 

 sought the sheik to grant me a leave of absence. My departure was 

 then decided upon. The messenger returned to announce the shiek's 

 consent, and, three days after, the pasha intrusted me to our old guide 

 Abbad, surnamed El Karman (" the Maimed," from the loss of three 

 of his fingers), and we ascended the mountains, by way of the North 

 Pass, where a month ago my companions had captured the strange 

 baboon I sent you with the cargo of the Tunisian traders. 



But the weather was now much drier, and I urged the Karman to 

 speed our march, for my soul had grown restless with wondering 

 expectation. All reports presaged a land of marvels. The texture 

 of the Monakee garments was said to be superior to the best linen of 

 Soodan, and from the excellence of their weapons the Monakees were 

 dreaded as foes, though not loved as allies. Far stranger than all the 

 rumors about the marvels of their country were the doubts about the 

 humanity * of their race. The perfection of their manufactures in- 

 clined some tO'Credit them with superhuman skill, while others argued 

 that their habits and appearance proved them to be an inferior variety 

 of monkeys. My own opinion I shall give by-and-by. Of their skill 

 in textile fabrics I had a proof when the Karman showed me a pair 

 of foot-sacks (calcetes, probably a sort of woven gaiters), gay-colored 

 and of great strength, and cheap withal, though not to the weavers ; 

 for my guide told me that such goods are manufactured in houses 

 where the air is thick with dust, and where scores of the young Mona- 

 kees are killed with overwork. 



People who treat their own children so unkindly can not be expected 

 to show much mercy to their enemies, and I did not wonder when we 

 passed a field where human bones were bleaching in large heaps the 

 monuments of a battle in which the Monakees had slain twenty thou- 

 sand of their neighbors. Still I thought that the cause of the war 



* " Henschlichkeit," W. Cristianismo, say3 Dr. Reidor, probably from an inadvertent 

 confusion of correlative terms. Even in the language of our country-people the two 

 words are sometimes used as interchangeable synonyms, as m the phrase, " He takes his 

 grog just like a Christian " in referring to the accomplishments of a trained monkey. 



