444 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. LX VII. 
Thus I had begun to make myself a little more 
comfortable, when suddenly on the morning of the 10 th, 
while I was suffering from another attack of fever, I 
was excited by the report being circulated, that the 
party opposed to my residence in the town was arming 
in order to attack me in my house. Now, I must 
confess that, notwithstanding the profession of sincere 
friendship made to me by Sidi A'lawate, I am in- 
clined to believe that he himself was not free from 
treachery, and, perhaps, was in some respect im- 
plicated in this manoeuvre, as he evidently supposed 
that, on the first rumour of such an attack being 
intended, I should abandon my house, or at least my 
property, when he might hope to get possession under- 
hand of at least a good portion of the latter before 
the arrival of his brother, whom he knew to be a 
straightforward man, and who would not connive at 
such intrigues. With this view, I have no doubt, he 
sent a female servant to my house, advising me to de- 
posit all my goods* in safety with the Taleb el Wafi, as 
.* On this occasion, which was a rather serious one, a most 
ridiculous misunderstanding was caused by the peculiarity of 
the Arabic dialect used in Timbuktu, which puzzled me and my 
companions very often, and sometimes made conversation between 
me and my friends very difficult and intricate. When the ser- 
vant said that we should remove all our " haiwan " from our 
house, supposing that she meant animals, we told her that we had 
only one animal in our house, viz. my horse ; and it was some time 
before we learned that in Timbuktu, which is inhabited mostly by 
such Arabs as have been at a former period dwellers in the desert, 
and whose property consisted almost exclusively of camels and 
cattle, the word " haiwan " comprises all kinds of movable property. 
