Chap. XL VIII. 
BU'-BAKR SADl'K. 
339 
was therefore very fortunate that I had the company 
of Bii-Bakr Sadik, for no other person would have been 
able to give me such an insight into the character 
and the history of these regions as this man. 
He drew a spirited picture of the great national 
struggle which his countrymen had been carrying on 
against Bornu, he himself having taken part in several 
battles. He boasted, and with reason, that slaves of 
his master had twice beaten the sheikh Mohammed el 
Kanemi, and that the sheikh had only gained the 
victory by calling to his assistance Mustapha el 
A'hmar and Mukni, the two succeeding sultans of 
Fezzan, when, by destroying the towns of Babaliya 
and Gawi, and by taking possession of the capital, he 
made himself temporary master of the country. He 
described to me with delight how his countrymen 
had driven back the Fellata who were endeavouring 
to establish the Jemmara in their country, and that 
they had undertaken afterwards a successful expe- 
dition against Bogo, one of the settlements of that 
nation. 
Bii-Bakr indeed might have been called a patriot in 
every sense of the word. Although a loyal subject, 
and humbly devoted to his sultan, nevertheless he be- 
held with the deepest mortification the decline of his 
native country from the former wealth and import- 
ance it had enjoyed previous to the time when e Abd 
el Kerim Sabiin, the sultan of Waday, conquered it, 
plundered its treasures, made the king tributary, and 
led numbers of the inhabitants into slavery. Thus 
z 2 
