chap, /x.] IBRAHIMAWA'S REMINISCENCES OF ENGLAND. 245 
at a drake; the bird flew a considerable distance and 
towered, falling about a quarter of a mile distant. A 
Latooka was hoeing close to where it fell, and we dis¬ 
tinctly saw him pick up the bird and run to a bush, 
in which he hid it; upon our arrival he continued 
his work as though nothing had happened, and denied 
all knowledge of it: he was accordingly led by the 
ear to the bush, where we found the duck carefully 
secreted. 
June 14.—The natives lost one man killed in the 
fight yesterday, therefore the night was passed in 
singing and dancing. 
The country is drying up ; although the stream is 
full there is no rain in Latooka, the water in the river 
being the eastern drainage of the Obbo mountains, 
where it rains daily. 
Ibrahimawa, the Bornu man, alias “ Sinbad the 
Sailor,” the great traveller, amuses and bores me daily 
with his long and wonderful stories of his travels. 
The style of his narratives may be conjectured from 
the following extracts : “ There was a country adjoining 
Bornu, where the king was so fat and heavy that he 
could not walk, until the doctors opened his belly and 
cut the fat out , which operation was repeated annually.” 
He described another country as a perfect Paradise, 
where no one ever drank anything so inferior as water. 
This country was so wealthy that the poorest man 
could drink merissa (beer). He illustrated the general 
intoxication by saying, that “ after 3 p.m. no one was 
sober throughout the country, and from that hour the 
cows, goats, and fowls were all drunk , as they drank 
the merissa left in the jars by their owners, who were 
all asleep.” 
He knew all about England, having been a servant 
on a Turkish frigate that was sent to Gravesend. He 
described an evening entertainment most vividly. He 
had been to a ball at an “ English Pasha’s in Black- 
wall” and had succeeded wonderfully with some 
charming English ladies excessively “ decollete,” upon 
