230 
TRAVELS IK AFRICA. Chap. LXXVIII. 
maten, both of them worthy young men, I had a very 
animated conversation with my friend Mohammed el 
Khottar over our tea, and I promised him a con- 
siderable number of Arabic books, in the event of his 
paying a visit to England.* 
The following morning, when I was lying outside 
my tent, as was my custom, enjoying the fresh air, 
all my friends gathered round me, and I had to read 
to them passages from various European books, in- 
cluding the Greek text of the Evangelists. The German 
principally attracted the attention of these people, the 
full heavy words of that language appearing to them 
somewhat like their own idiom, and they became 
highly elated, when I recited to them from memory 
some verses of a favourite German poem. 
All my people were so full of enthusiasm, on 
account of a fair prospect of a speedy departure on 
our home-journey being held out to them, that they 
gave the Sheikh El Bakay, when he joined us, in the 
course of the morning, in Gogo, a most hearty recep- 
tion, and fired away a good deal of powder in honour 
of him. I afterwards went with him to distribute some 
presents amongst the chiefs of the Kel e' Siik and 
some great men of the Awelimmiden, who had arrived 
in the company of the Sheikh. Khozematen received 
* This young man actually came to Tripoli in the course of 
last summer, but the unfortunate state of Indian affairs, and 
other circumstances, together with an illness common with people 
coming from the interior, which attacked both him and his com- 
panions, prevented his coming to this country. 
