454 
TRAVELS IN AFEICA. Chap. XXXIV. 
The reader sees that these wandering Arabs are 
introducing civilization into the very heart of this 
continent, and it would not be amiss if they could all 
boast of such accomplishments; but this rarely 
happens. Even this very man was a remarkable 
example of those saintly adventurers so frequently 
met with in Negroland, but who begin to tire out 
the patience of the more enlightened princes of 
the country. He brought me a lump of native home- 
made soap, with which, as he said, I might " wash 
my clothes, as I came from the dirty, soapless 
country of Bornu." This present was not ill-selected, 
although I hope that the reader will not thence con- 
clude that I was particularly dirty, — at least not 
more so than an African traveller might be fairly ex- 
pected to be. I had laid in a good store of cloves, 
which, as I have had already occasion to mention, are 
highly esteemed here, so I made him very happy by 
giving him about half a pound weight of them. 
More interesting, however, to me than the visit of 
this wandering son of the East was the visit of two 
young native noblemen, sons of the Ardo Jidda, to 
whom belongs the country between Sugiir and Wan- 
dala* or Mandara, and the younger of whom was a 
remarkably handsome man, of slender form, light 
complexion, and a most agreeable expression of coun- 
tenance. This, however, is a remark which I have 
often made on my travels, that the males among the 
Fulbe are very handsome till they reach the age of 
about twenty years, when they gradually assume an 
