Chap. XL VIII. CHARACTER OF BA'kADA'. 
343 
few looking-glasses, but principally needles, while here 
also the people required what I had not, namely, the 
cotton strips which I have mentioned above. The 
only luxury offered for sale in the market was a 
miserable lean sheep ; and, as a representative of 
foreign civilization, there was half a sheet of common 
paper. 
This was the sole attraction of the place, with the 
exception of my amiable, intelligent, and kind host 
Bii-Bakr Sadik. The poor old man was extremely in- 
dignant at the negligent manner in which I was 
treated ; but he was feeble and timorous, and had no 
authority in higher spheres. The information which 
from time to time I collected from him during my 
monotonous stay in this place shall be given in the 
appendix, in the several places to which the subjects 
refer. It was very amusing for me to observe that 
the good old man, all the time that he was conversing 
with me, was not a moment idle; but he would either 
sew, not only for himself, but even articles of dress 
for another wife of his, whom he had in the capital^ 
and soon intended to visit, or he would scrape some 
root to use as medicine, or else select some indigo, for 
dyeing his tobe, or, if he had nothing better to do, 
he would gather the single grains of corn which had 
fallen to the ground, — for in his pious frame of mind 
he thought it a sin that so valuable a proof of the 
bounty of the Almighty should be wasted. 
The other inhabitants of the place were rather 
uninteresting ; and I had a great deal of trouble with 
z 4 
