ARRIVAL AT MANDARA'8 COURT. 
Ill 
seemed to touch the snow with their waving tops. 
Below me, on the other side, lay stretched a vast 
plain, marked, as on a map, with rivers, mountains, 
and forests, and stretching away into hazy space, 
where it mingled with the low-lying strata of cloud. 
We were only 3,500 feet above the sea at Mandara’s, 
and relatively at the very foot of the mountain; but 
the view on all sides, above and below, was unusually 
magnificent. I was interrupted in my sketching by a 
messenger from the chief. I could not at first under¬ 
stand the import of his message, as he spoke in 
Ki-caga, but with the aid of an interpreter I ascer¬ 
tained he bore a request that I would go and visit one 
of Mandara’s wives who was sick. Hearing the cause 
of her indisposition was a virulent ulcer, I took with 
me the necessary ointments, and followed the mes¬ 
senger alone, being conducted to a quiet little square 
inside a palisade, where, in three beehive huts, dwelt 
the three principal wives of Mandara. I was intro¬ 
duced to the ailing lady, who scarcely glanced at 
me, merely sticking out a leg, on which festered a 
hideous sore. She had been fanning it to keep away 
the flies before my arrival, but now quietly surren¬ 
dered it to me, imagining, poor simple thing, that I 
should immediately cure it. I explained to her, how¬ 
ever, that recovery would be slow and gradual. Then 
laving the ulcer in cold spring-water, which was 
brought to me in a broken gourd, I applied to it the 
kind of ointment recommended in my medicine-book, 
and, bandaging up her leg, added much good advice, 
and left. I suppose my simple skill had made a due 
impression, for I was hardly back in camp and sketch¬ 
ing once more when the messenger arrived again, 
informing me there were more of Mandara’s wives 
