Chap. XLII. IMPORTANT INFORMATION. 147 
While chatting together upon these subjects till 
after midnight, I had an opportunity of giving the 
vizier some little information regarding the peculiar 
character of the maritime power of the imam of Mas- 
kat, of which he had never heard before, and which 
interested him exceedingly. With the Arabs of Tim- 
buktu, also, this subject formed a topic of the highest 
interest, as they had no idea that there were people 
of the same faith living on the eastern shores of this 
continent ; and they delighted in the thought, that 
even in those regions there were Moslems, who were 
not quite destitute of political power. For, although 
the famous traveller Ebn Batuta has given to his 
countrymen an account of these regions, it was only 
in Sokoto that I met with a man, the learned Kaderi 
dan TafFa, who knew Sofala by name. 
My friend Billama also frequently called on me, and 
furnished me with a variety of information *, while I 
applied myself strenuously to the study of the Kanuri 
language, which had discouraged me at first, owing 
to the difficulties of its grammatical structure : and I 
* Among other things, he informed me that at a short distance 
north from Dikowa lies the town A'jiri, equally surrounded by 
a clay wall, and inhabited by Kanuri ; but while a tribute is 
levied on Dikowa by the Mala Masa Mandara, A'jiri belongs to a 
man called A'bsa. About two hours south by west from Dikowa 
is another walled town, called Gawa; but this town still at the 
present day is inhabited by the ancient population of the country, 
viz., the Gamerglm, and is the residence of a petty native chief, 
Billama Sara, while another petty chief of the Gamerghu has his 
residence in Degimba, the Dagwamba of Major Denham. Of the 
Gamerghu I have spoken on a former occasion. 
i, 2 
