288 
CHAP. XXX. 
THE CAPITAL OF BO'RNU. 
Having endeavoured to impart to the reader a 
greater interest in the country, by relating its former 
history, as far as I was able to make it out, I shall 
now give an account of my stay in Kukawa before 
setting out on my journey to Adamawa. 
Regarding Kukawa only as the basis of my further 
proceedings, and as a necessary station already suf- 
ficiently known to the European public by the long 
stay of the former expedition, I endeavoured to collect 
as much information as possible with regard to the 
surrounding countries. Two of my friends were dis- 
tinguished by a good deal of Mohammedan learning, 
by the precision with which they recollected the 
countries they had wandered through, and by digni- 
fied manners ; but they differed much in character, 
and were inclined to quarrel with each other as often 
as they happened to meet in my house. 
These t wo men, to whom I am indebted for a great 
deal of interesting and precise information, were 
the Arab Ahmed bel Mejub, of that division of the 
tribe of the Welad bu-Seba who generally live in 
the Wadi Sakiyet el Hamra, to the south of Morocco, 
and the Pullo Ibrahim, son of the Sheikh el Mukhtar, 
in Kahaide on the Senegal, and cousin of the late 
