VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER. 207 
and then asking me in a jocose manner to remain among the 
Man dingoes. He treated me with great kindness, and 
made me a present of two colat-nuts which Ibrahim ate, 
for they were too bitter for me. My guide introduced me to 
several of his friends, who received me kindly. My hut 
was all day filled with people who came to visit me out of 
curiosity, and who asked me a thousand questions. Several 
of them informed me that they had been at Sierra-Leone, 
where they had seen many whites ; adding that 1 was very 
like them, and that they did not believe 1 was an Arab. 
They said to each other Lo forto, forto, (he is a European). 
Some said this merely in jest ; but others sincerely believed 
it. However, Ibrahim manfully took my part, asserting 
that I was a souloca-tigui, tigiii (a real Arab) and that a 
christian would never perform the salam and study the 
Koran. 
In the course of the day Ibrahim desired one of his 
wives to prepare a warm bath for me. He lodged me in 
company with an old marabout of Bondou, who had come 
to this part of the country to officiate as a school-mastero 
He taught the children of the village the Koran. The 
method of teaching adopted among all the Musulmans of 
the interior of Africa is to write on small boards verses of 
the Koran, which are chanted by the scholars as they sit 
round a large fire. The lesson is written by the master 
himself, until the scholars are sufficiently advanced to write 
it themselves. At Cambaya this sort of public school is 
very well managed : the master maintains the most rigid 
discipline. The school is attended by girls as well as boys 
but the education of females is much neglected. It is 
thought enough if they know the first verses of the Koran : 
boys, on the other hand, are required to learn it all by hearty 
after which a more able master is found for them, and he 
explains to them the most difficult passages of the sacred 
book. The scholars, are, in some respects, the servants of their 
