406 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XXXIII. 
slavery, and filling the whole village with her lamen- 
tations and curses of the Kaniiri, when she heard 
that her beloved had not come back, and that she 
should never see him again. This of course made a 
bad impression upon the inhabitants, and while 'Ashi, 
their chief, a man who after an unsuccessful struggle 
with my companion Billama, when governor of these 
districts, had submitted to the sheikh, received us 
with kindness and benevolence, his son, in whose 
recently and neatly built hut the old man wished to 
lodge me, raised a frightful alarm, and at length, 
snatching up his weapon, ran off with the wildest 
threats. I therefore thought it best not to make use 
of the hut unless forced by another storm, and not- 
withstanding the humidity, I took up my quarters 
under a shed before the hut, spreading my carpet and 
jirbiye — woollen blanket from Jirbi- — over a coarse 
mat of reed, as unfortunately at that time I had no 
sort of couch with me. 
There was an object of very great interest in our 
courtyard. It was a large pole about nine feet high 
above the ground, with a small cross pole which sus- 
tained an earthern pot of middling size. This was a 
" sail," a sort of fetish, a symbolic representation, as 
it seems, of their god " fete," the sun. It was a 
pity that we were not placed in a more comfortable 
position, so as to be enabled to make further inquiries 
with regard to this subject. 
'Asbi was kind enough to send me a large bowl of 
honey- water, but I was the only one of the caravan 
