150 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XXVI. 
but the self-conceited courtier, though born a slave, 
thought himself insulted by such a question, and by 
the presumption that he ever paid attention to such 
trivial things as the direction of a watercourse, or 
the name of a village ! 
Having watered our horses here, I and my friend 
went on in advance, to secure quarters for the night, 
and chose them in a small hamlet, where, after some 
resistance, a mallem gave us up part of his court- 
yard surrounded with a fence of the stalks of Guinea 
corn. When the camels came up we pitched our 
tent. The boy 'Abd-Alla, however, seeing that my 
party was so small, and fearing that we should have 
some misadventure, had run away and returned to 
Kan6. 
Though there was much talk of thieves, who indeed 
infest the whole neighbourhood of this great market- 
town, and, excited by the hope of remaining un- 
punished under an indolent government, very often 
carry off camels during the night even from the 
middle of the town, we passed a tranquil night, and 
got off at a tolerably early hour the next morning. 
The character of the country is almost the same as 
that during our last day's march in coming from 
Katsena, small clusters of huts and detached farms 
being spread about over the cultivated country, 
where we observed also some tobacco-fields just in 
flower : my attention was more attracted by a small 
range of hills in the distance on our left. I was also 
