104 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
preserved no credible traditions respecting these objects. 
They merely imagined them to contain treasures, and 
to be frequented by demons.” 
After leaving Siwah, Browne made various excur¬ 
sions in Egypt, and then settled in Cairo, where he 
studied Arabic. He left this town upon the 10th of 
September, 1792, and visited in succession Kaw, Achmin, 
Gergeh, Dendera, Kazr, Thebes, Assouan, Kosseir, 
Memphis, Suez, and Mount Sinai; then, wishing to 
enter Abyssinia, but convinced that he could not do so 
by way of Massowah, he left Assiut for Darfur, with a 
Soudan caravan, in May, 1793. The caravan halted 
upon its way to Darfur at the different towns of Aine, 
Dizeh, Charyeh, Bulak, Scheb, Selinceh, Leghea, and 
Ber-el-Malha. 
Being taken ill at Soueini, Browne was detained 
there, and only reached El-Fascher after a long delay. 
Here his annoyances and the exactions levied recom¬ 
menced, and he could not succeed in obtaining an 
interview with the sultan. He was forced to spend 
the winter at Cobbeh, awaiting his restoration to health, 
which only took place in the summer of 1794. This 
time of forced inaction was not, however, wasted by the 
traveller ; he acquainted himself with the manners and 
dialects of Darfur. Upon the return of summer, Browne 
repaired to El-Fascher, and recommenced his applications 
for admittance to the sultan. They were attended with 
the same unsuccessful results, until a crowning act of 
injustice at length procured for him the interview he 
had so long solicited in vain. 
“ I found,” he says, “the monarch Abd-el-Raschinan 
seated on his throne under a lofty wooden canopy of 
Syrian and Indian stuffs indiscriminately mixed. The 
door in front of the throne was spread with small Turkey 
carpets. The meleks (officers of the court) were seated 
at some distance off on the right and left, and behind 
them stood a line of guards, wearing caps ornamented 
in front with a small copper plate and a black ostrich 
feather. Each bore a spear in his right hand, and a 
shield of hippopotamus-hide on the left arm. Their 
