AFRICAN EXPLORERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 133 
boasts of two mosques, with a market and a large 
square opposite to the sultan’s residence. 
The inhabitants, most of whom are Fellatahs, own 
many slaves ; and the latter, those at least who are not 
in domestic service, work at some trade for their masters’ 
profit. They are weavers, masons, blacksmiths, shoe¬ 
makers, or husbandmen. 
To do honour to his host, and also to give him an 
exalted notion of the power and wealth of England, 
Olapperton assumed a dazzling costume when he paid 
his first visit to Sultan Bello. He covered his uniform 
with gold lace, donned white trousers and silk stockings, 
and completed this holiday attire by a Turkish turban 
and slippers. Bello received him, seated on a cushion 
in a thatched hut like an English cottage. The sultan, 
a handsome man, about forty-five years old, wore a blue 
cotton tobe and a white cotton turban, one end of which 
fell over his nose and mouth in Turkish fashion. 
Bello accepted the traveller’s presents with childish 
glee. The watch, telescope, and thermometer, which he 
naively called a “heat watch,” especially delighted him; 
but he wondered more at his visitor than at any of his gifts. 
He was unwearied in his questions as to the manners, 
customs, and trade of England ; and after receiving 
several replies, he expressed a wish to open commercial 
relations with that Power. He would like an English 
consul and a doctor to reside in a port he called Raka, 
and finally he requested that certain articles of English 
manufacture should be sent to Funda, a very thriving 
seaport of his. After a good many talks on the different 
religions of Europe, Bello gave back to Olapperton the 
books, journals, and clothes which had been taken from 
Denham, at the time of the unfortunate excursion in 
which Boo-Khaloum lost his life. 
On the 3rd May Olapperton took leave of the 
sultan. This time there was a good deal of delay before 
he was admitted to an audience. Bello was alone, and 
gave the traveller a letter for the King of England, with 
many expressions of friendship towards the country 
of his visitor, reiterating his wish to open commercial 
