200 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chat. LVIII. 
ment which I had previously made with him, 
when he saw the difficulties I was in, and being 
aware that the easy part of my journey was now 
over, he threatened to leave me if I did not ac- 
cept the conditions which he prescribed to me. I 
had also the misfortune to lose, during my stay here, 
my best camel, which I had bought from the go- 
vernor of Katsena for 60,000 shells; so that I was 
obliged to purchase another animal from Bii Bakr 
Maiguna at the price he demanded, camels here being 
very scarce. 
Notwithstanding all this disagreeable business, 
which occasionally cost me much bitter reflection, 
greatly enhanced by the advance of the season, the 
month of May being at an end, and that of June 
having set in with violent rains, I passed the time 
during my residence in this place not quite uselessly, 
especially as I was so fortunate as to obtain here from 
a learned man of the name of Bokhari, a son of the 
late Mohammed Wani, a copy of that most valuable 
historical work of A'hmed Baba, to which my friend 
e Abd el Kader, in Sokoto, had first called my at- 
tention, but without being able to satisfy my curio- 
sity ; and I spent three or four days most pleasantly 
in extracting the more important historical data of 
this work, which opened to me quite a new insight 
into the history of the regions on the middle course 
of the Niger, whither I was bending my steps, ex- 
citing in me a far more lively interest than I had 
previously felt in a kingdom the great power of 
