INTERVIEW WITH SULTAN IBRAHIM. 183 
our goods were directed to his care from Tintalous 
— that is, those things which we sent up before us. 
The Sultans of Zinder are always a little disaffected; 
and to check them, and watch their conduct, the 
Shereef has been sent here. This personage is also 
universally respected for his learning, piety, and 
almsgiving ; so that, apparently, the Sheikh could 
not have intrusted his interests to a more able man. 
The Shereef knows well the use of arms, for it is 
reported here in Zinder that he has killed forty 
thousand Frenchmen with his own hands ! The 
people actually believe this most marvellous report ! 
After leaving the Shereef we went to salute the 
Sultan Ibrahim, and deliver to his highness our 
present. We were conducted into a species of 
fort, built of clay, with walls exceedingly thick. 
Here in a sort of anteroom, or open skifa, or hall, 
we found some fifty soldiers of the Sultan, unarmed 
and bare-headed, with one or two governors of neigh- 
bouring places, all squatted upon the ground. I 
was requested to squat down amongst them, which 
I did near a raised mud-bench. There was little 
light, the place being built to shut out the glare and 
heat of the sun. Here I waited a quarter of an 
hour, till the Sultan was announced by the cries of 
the soldiers, slaves, and domestic officers. His 
highness took his seat upon the mud-bench ; and 
whilst so doing his attendants all squatted down, 
many of them taking up the dust from the ground 
and throwing it over their bare heads, and crying, 
