Chap. LVII. MUSICAL PRESENTS. 
185 
escort; and it was very essential to me to hasten my 
proceedings, as the following day brought the first 
evident proof of the approach of the rainy season. 
Having made a present to the ghaladima also, I 
thought it better, in order to make up for the deficiency 
of the musical box, to satisfy the musical taste of the 
sultan by making him a present of one of the har- 
monica which the Chevalier Bunsen, in considera- 
tion of the great elFect which the Rev. Mr. Knoblecher 
had produced, with the aid of such an instrument, 
upon the inhabitants of the shores of the Nile, had 
procured for me ; but I succeeded afterwards in re- 
pairing, in some measure, the musical box, which 
caused the good-natured chief inexpressible delight, 
so that he lost no time in writing for me a commenda- 
tory letter to his nephew Khalilu the chief of Gando. 
But I was extremely anxious to get away from this 
place, as I was sorely pestered by begging parties, 
the inhabitants of Wurno and Sokoto being the most 
troublesome beggars in the world, and besides them 
there being also many strangers in the town, espe- 
cially the Kelgeres, who had brought the salt. 
I was sitting, one day, in the entrance-hall of my 
house, in the company of some of these sons of the 
desert, when Gome, the brother of the sultan f Abd el 
Kader, from A'gades, who had lately been dethroned 
in order to make way for a new chief, A'hmed e' 
Rufay, called upon me, and, with a very important 
and mysterious air, requested me to give him a private 
audience. After I had dismissed my other visitors, 
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