248 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. LIX 
is A'bii Bakr, the son of the far-famed mallem Mo- 
hammed Jebbo. I found him a tolerably cheerful 
person, although he is wanting in that manliness of 
character which makes a lasting impression, and he 
bore evident signs of having been born of a female 
slave, while his manners appeared to me to possess 
something approaching to a Jewish character. He, 
however, was delighted to see me, as I was not only 
the first Christian who had ever visited this place, 
which Mungo Park, on his ever-memorable journey, 
seems to have passed by entirely unnoticed, but 
especially as I had come at a time when the whole 
intercourse of the country had been interrupted, and 
Arabs as well as natives were all afraid of visiting 
it. Having heard of the great superiority of Euro- 
peans over the Arabs, both in point of intelligence 
and industry, he entertained an earnest wish, if it 
could be accomplished without detriment to the wel- 
fare of his province, that a vessel or steamer belonging 
to them might come and fill his poor market with 
luxuries; and it was with the utmost surprise that 
he learned that I did not trade. But, on the other 
hand, this led the governor to think that, in ex- 
posing myself to such great dangers, I could not 
but have a very mysterious object in view ; and he 
soon became alarmed, and asked repeatedly why I 
did not proceed on my journey. 
I had already been informed in Gando, that A'bii 
Bakr, two years previously, had navigated the river 
with a small flotilla of boats, upwards as far as Gagho 
