Towards evening my anxiety was very great on account of my baggage, as no appearance of it, or any tidings that I could depend upon was to be learnt. The governor’s son of Wawa, who is here, offered to go to Wawa and see what was the reason they had not come. Tuesday, 4th.—I found on his return from Wawa, to my great surprise, that my baggage would not be allowed to come until the widow Zuma went back to Wawa. “What have I to do with the widow?” I asked him. “Yes, you have,” says he, “and you must come back with me and fetch her.” “Not I,” I answered; “what have I to do with her? If I were governor of Wawa I would bring her back if I wanted her, but I am a stranger.” “Then,” says he, “I will go if you will send a token and a message, to say I come from you.” I gave him my umbrella, but no message, declaring I would not send any. The governor’s son went to the widow, and I went to Wawa, where I arrived at noon. My trusty servant Richard arrived at the same instant from Boussa, where he had been to seek me, and acquaint me of the detention of my property: his only guide, a boy whose language he did not understand, or any other but his own native English. He had seen the sultan and midaki, who understood from the little boy who accompanied him what he had come for. They treated him with great kindness, making him remain all night; and in the morning sent him with two armed men to protect him and to find me, and to desire the governor of Wawa to allow my things to go instantly: a convincing fact that the minds of men here must be much changed for the better since the days of Park and Martin. He had left Wawa yesterday, to come and inform me of the detention of my baggage, and the cause why; which was the widow Zuma’s having left Wawa about half an hour after I did, with drums beating before her, and a train after her, first calling at my house before she waited on the governor; giving Pascoe a female slave for a wife, without the governor’s permission, which I had allowed him to accept; and the widow’s declaration before she went away, that she intended following me to Kano, and come back and make war on the governor, as she had done once before. I was glad to find all my things safe; and was more amused than vexed to think that I had been so oddly let into the politics of Wawa, and that the old governor meant me no harm, but just to let me see his consequence before I left Wawa. I certainly never would have thought that the widow Zuma would have been at the head of the malcontents in Wawa. I was now let into their politics with a vengeance; and it was believed I was taking a very great share in them. It would have been a fine end to my journey indeed, if I had deposed old Mohamed, and set up for myself, with a walking tun-butt for a queen.