244 TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
There are in the town four or five Me&ebs^ where boys are 
taught to read, and, if they wifh it, to write. Such of the 
Fukkara as fill the office of ledurer, infl:rud: gratuitoufly the 
children of the indigent ; but from thofe who are in eafy cir- 
cumflances they are accuftomed to receive a fmall remuneration. 
Two or three ledure in the Koran, and two others in what 
they call Elm, theology. 
There VN^as, at the time of my arrival, only one fmall mofque, 
a little fquare room, formed by walls of clay, where the Fuk- 
kara were accuftomed to meet thrice in the week. The Cadi 
of the place was a certain Faqii'i Ahd-el-rachmm, a. man much 
in the decline of life, originally of Sennaar. He had ftudied 
at the yama-el-azher in Kahira, and was much reputed in the 
place for the juftice and impartiality of his decifions, and the 
imiform fandity of his life. He funk under the weight of 
years and infirmity, during the fecond year after my arrival, 
and the charge of Cadi was committed by the monarch to 
another, who was almoft incapacitated from executing the du- 
ties of it, as well by a painful diforder as by his great age. 
The more adive part of the office, therefore, was difcharged by 
his fon, who w^as as remarkable for corruption as the Faqui 
Ahd-d-rachman had been for integrity. Whether from indig- 
nation at this man's unworthinefs, or envy of his pre-eminence, 
is uncertain, a divifion enfued among the Fukkara, and part 
of them united under Hajfan, part under Bdlilu, a man faid 
to be learned in the laws, but of a forbidding and ungracious 
deportment. The former, with the countenance and affiftance 
of 
