280 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. LX. 
and joyful day, soon after midnight, almost the whole 
of the men went out in the morning in order to say 
their prayers at about a mile's distance from the town. 
All the Fiilbe were dressed in snow-white shirts, as 
a symbol of the purity of their creed ; but some of 
them wore dark-blue trousers. There were about 
forty horses with the party, which probably was all 
that the townspeople could muster. 
Having had to sustain here a slight religious attack 
from the kadhi, who wanted to represent me as a 
sorcerer, I thought it prudent to make a small pre- 
sent to each of the holiday people, as a kind of 
seddega, or alms. The holiday also disturbed me 
in compiling a small vocabulary of the Gurma lan- 
guage, called by the Fiilbe Gurman-kobe, which I 
had begun, but was obliged to leave unfinished. 
