400 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XXXIII. 
dent, all the people sleeping in a close circle round 
my tent. 
Monday At an early hour we set out on our jour- 
june 9th. ne y ? being joined by several of the Fulbe, 
who had come the day before to salute me, while 
only one of our caravan remained behind, namely, 
the horseman of Mala Ibram. This whole district 
had formerly belonged to the last-named person ; but 
he had lately ceded it to Abu-Bakr, the son of Sheikh 
'Omar : but we have seen what a precarious posses- 
sion it was. The country through which we passed 
was varied and fertile, although the sky was over- 
cast ; and I was struck with the frequency of the 
poisonous euphorbia, called " kariigu " by the Kaniiri. 
Further on, the crop stood already a foot high, and 
formed a most pleasant object. We then entered a 
dense forest, where the danger became considerable, 
an evident proof of the lawless state of this country 
being seen in the village Yesa, which was in some 
degree subject (" imana," as the people call it, with an 
Arabic name) to the sheikh 'Omar, but had been 
ransacked and burnt about forty days previously by 
the tribe of the Guluk. It was the first village on 
this road the huts of which were entirely of the 
construction called by the Kaniiri " bongo." 
Having stopped here a few minutes to allow the 
people to recruit themselves, we pushed on with speed, 
and soon passed the site of another village, which 
had been destroyed at an earlier period, having close 
on our left a fertile plain in a wild state, over which 
