2 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. LXX. 
into friendly relations with me. My health as yet 
was very precarious ; but I felt so much recovered 
in mind and body that, preparatory to my longed for 
departure, I began arranging the remainder of my 
baggage, which, with the exception of my small 
library, had been very much reduced. To my great 
astonishment and delight, while searching through 
my lumber, I found another thermometer in good 
repair. From the remainder of my broken instru- 
ments I picked up a good deal of quicksilver, which I 
gave to the Sheikh, who himself, as well as his other 
unsophisticated friends, derived a great deal of amuse- 
ment from observing the qualities of this metal. Mean- 
while, my protector endeavoured to make me fully 
acquainted with the political relation in which he 
stood to his brothers, Sidi Mohammed and Zen el 
'Abidin, whom he expected soon to arrive, and of 
whose different views in politics he gave me some 
slight hints ; and I lamented greatly that the power 
of this noble family, instead of being strengthened 
by the number of its conspicuous scions, was only 
rent and split by the divergency of their views. 
The course of my material existence went on very 
uniformly, w^ith only slight variations. My daily food, 
when I was in the town, consisted of some milk and 
bread in the morning, a little kuskus, which the Sheikh 
used to send, about two in the afternoon, and a dish 
of negro millet, containing a little meat, or seasoned 
with the sauce of the kobewa, or Cucurhita Melopepo^ 
after sunset. The meat of Timbuktu, at least during 
DS( 
