420 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XXXIV. 
governor's house, and were at length conducted into 
quarters so insufficient that we preferred encamping 
outside the town, and pitched our tent near a tree, 
which promised to afford us a shady place during the 
hot hours of the day. But we had scarcely made 
ourselves comfortable when the governor's servants 
came and requested me most urgently to come into 
the town, promising us good lodgings ; I therefore 
gave way, and told them that I would go to my 
promised quarters towards night. As long as the 
weather was dry, the open air was much more agree- 
able; and I turned our open encampment to account 
by taking accurate angles of all the summits around ; 
but a storm in my small and weak tent was a very 
uncomfortable thing, and I gladly accepted the offer 
of good quarters for the night. 
In the course of the afternoon almost the whole 
population of the town came out to see me and my 
camels, and the governor himself came on horseback, 
inviting me into his own house, when I showed 
him my chronometer, compass, and telescope, which 
created immense excitement, but still greater was 
the astonishment of those particularly who knew 
how to read, at the very small print in my prayer- 
book. The amiable side of the character of the Fulbe 
is their intelligence and vivacity, but they have a 
great natural disposition to malice, and are not by 
any means so good-natured as the real Blacks ; for 
they really are — certainly more in their character 
