196 
TRAVELS IN NORTHERN AFRICA. 
CHAP. IV. 
be opened until wa reached the Negro country. I found in them, 
amongst other things, about 600lbs. of lead, one camel load of corks 
for preserving insects on, and two loads of brown paper for pre- 
paring plants. As these amounted in all to about five loads, which 
were not worth carrying 'oack to Tripoli, I sent them, with two 
large chests of Arsenic bottles into Yussuf 's house, taking a proper 
receipt for them, so that any future traveller or myself might be 
enabled to receive them. I found that the other goods, including 
five cwt. of books and two chests of instruments, would load about 
eight camels : we therefore commenced taking a list of them, and 
putting them carefully away, when we were again attacked with 
fever, and confined to our beds, remaining with all our merchandise 
at the mercy of Arabs and natives. 
1 had at this time occasion to turn off our man, and the woman 
also who cooked for us, as I had strong reason to doubt their 
honesty. Yussuf lent us, in our distress, a fine intelligent boy called 
Barca, who, with our Negro girl, greatly assisted us. 
The weather having become very cold, we had a fire made in a 
hole in the ground, round which we sat in the evenings with some 
of the friends who came to see us. On these occasions they told 
us many long stories ; but Belford's deafness prevented his being 
amused with them as I was. KeHgion was generally the subject of 
these tales, which, when related by the old Hadje, were usually 
prefaced thus : " When a man has been three times to the holy 
house, as I have been, he begins to know something, thank God !" 
He repeated many marvellous stories of the country of Sindi, or 
Persia, in which is the bed of the sun, and where grows a tree 
bearing a fruit resembling a coffin. This growing daily larger until 
ripe, at last bursts, and out of it a man drops to the ground, who 
cries " Wauk, wauk ; in the name of the merciful God," and instantly 
expires, sinking suddenly into the earth. He told me that in 
