DEPARTURE FROM TIANKRA. 
65 
withstanding the length of my beard, enquired if I was a 
woman, probably conceiving, that my fair complexion was 
not sufficiently masculine. 
These circumstances engaged my attention and made me 
forget my fatigues ; I felt pleasure in observing the impres- 
sion made upon these good people by the presence of a white 
man ; I laughed at the reflections and tales which the wiseacres 
of the villag-e would make on our manners and customs : their 
ignorance amused me. How much must ours divert the 
Turkish or Persian ambassadors who visit our country ! I am 
sure they cannot think us less ridiculous than the Negroes by 
whom I was then surrounded appeared to me. 
When the heat had abated, we resumed our march. I 
stopped on the way at a well which was digging, and was 
not a little surprised to hear the workman at the bottom 
singing a song in praise of me ; it was a very unexpected 
honour, and of the most delicate nature ; it therefore deserved 
some reward. I gave a tobacco leaf to my panegyrist ; had I 
loaded him with gold, he could not have been more lavish of 
his encomiums. As I galloped off to rejoin my people, who 
had advanced before me, a shepherd cried out to me not to go 
so fast, lest I should be taken for a Moorish robber, and shot. 
I congratulated myself on having relinquished my Moorish 
costume, which would have exposed me to a thousand dangers 
amons: a nation which detests tho.e banditti. 
The village where we passed the night was inhabited by 
K 
