338 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XLVIII. 
fortunately the head man of the village refused them 
admittance, so that they were obliged to seek for 
hospitality in another hamlet, and it was my good 
luck to obtain quarters in the house of a man who 
forms one of the most pleasing recollections of my 
journey. This was Haj Bu-Bakr Sadik, a spare 
old man, of very amiable temperament, to whom I 
became indebted for a great deal of kindness and 
valuable information. 
While I pitched my tent in his small courtyard, he 
was sitting close by, and was informing me in very 
good Arabic, that he had thrice made the pilgrimage 
to Mekka, and seen the great ships of the Christians 
on the Sea of Jedda. He remembered minutely all 
the different localities which he had visited in the 
course of his long wanderings. 
Delighted that by chance I had fallen in with such 
a man, I sent away the next morning my horseman 
Grema \Abdu, and the two messengers, to the capital, 
in order to inform the lieutenant-governor that the 
chief of Biigoman had refused obedience to his direct 
order and denied me admittance into the town, and 
to ask him what was to become of me now. Sending 
him at the same time a present, I begged him urgently 
to allow me either to enter the capital or to retrace 
my steps to Bornu. Grema promised me that he 
would return the next morning with a decisive an- 
swer. However, he did not keep his promise, but 
remained absent full seven days, although the dis- 
tance from the capital was only about ten miles. It 
