68 
TRAVELS m AFRICA. 
Chap. LXXII. 
material privations also were not few, especially as 
I had not even taken coffee with me this time, so that I 
had nothing to refresh myself with in the early part of 
the morning. However, I tried to pass my time as 
cheerfully as possible, and took some interest in the 
appearance of a man who had likewise come out to 
enjoy the hospitality of the Sheikh. This was the 
sherif Miildy Isay, who, on account of his white skin, 
was almost suspected by the natives to be of Euro- 
pean origin. In the course of the day the Sheikh 
showed me some rich gold trinkets belonging to his 
wife, manufactured in Walata ; and this was almost 
the only time that I had an opportunity of inspecting 
these gold ornaments. They formed a sort of diadem : 
and I understood my host to say that he wanted to 
have a similar one made for Queen Victoria, which, 
however poor in itself, I assured him would be valued 
by the English as a specimen of their native industry. 
The stay in this place became the more disagree- 
able, as a high wind raised thick clouds of dust, and 
the leathern tent, in which Fandaghurame was stay- 
ing, was blown down, and I was therefore rather 
glad when, in the evening of the 13th, we returned 
into the town. Here, again, the news of the ar- 
rival of the " tabu " was a second time reported, and 
everybody again thrown into a state of excitement ; 
the Ergageda, a tribe of Arabs or Moors, moving to 
and fro, while all the poor degraded tribes in the 
neighbourhood, together with their herds of cattle and 
their flocks of sheep, fled again for refuge to the en- 
