318 TRAVELS IN AFEICA. Chap. XXX. 
try. This road, during the whole day, is crowded by 
numbers of people on horseback and on foot; free 
men and slaves, foreigners as well as natives, every 
one in his best attire, to pay his respects to the 
sheikh or his vizier, to deliver an errand, or to sue 
for justice or employment, or a present. I myself 
very often went along this well-trodden path — this 
highroad of ambition; but I generally went at an 
unusual hour, either at sunrise in the morning, or 
while the heat of the mid-day, not yet abated, de- 
tained the people in their cool haunts, or late at 
night, when the people were already retiring to rest 
or, sitting before their houses, beguiling their leisure 
hours with amusing tales or with petty scandal. 
At such hours I was sure to find the vizier or the 
sheikh alone ; but sometimes they wished me also to 
visit and sit with them, when they were accessible to 
all the people ; and on these occasions the vizier took 
pride and delight in conversing with me about mat- 
ters of science, such as the motion of the earth, or the 
planetary system, or subjects of that kind. 
