Situated in a depression between undulating hills which stretch from south-west to north-east, the settlement of Aboo Sammat was surrounded by numerous Bongo villages and fields. Here he centred an authority over his Bongo and Mittoo territories which stretched away for no less than sixty miles. The residence of Aboo himself was about a league away, where he kept his harem in retirement, his elder brother having the charge of the principal Seriba. After I had settled myself as conveniently as I could, I began afresh my accustomed rambles, so that, in the same way as I had done in Ghatta’s Seriba, I might familiarise myself with all the environs. At this period, when vegetation was at a stand-still, the flora presented little novelty, and whatever I found corresponded very much with what I had already seen in the district between the Tondy and the Dyoor. The woody places around Sabby were generally somewhat thicker; there was neither the same expanse of low steppe-country, nor the same frequent interruption of woods by grassy plains. Corresponding to this density of growth of the forests there was a greater variety in the fauna. [Sidenote: ARRIVAL IN SABBY.] Meanwhile, amidst my investigations, I did not lose sight of my projected journey to the Niam-niam, and continually made what preparation I could. I criticised very diligently the muscles and measurements of the people, and very materially enlarged my vocabulary. Although I was only half-way towards the country of the Niam-niam, I found myself brought into connection with a considerably large number of them, and subsequently I was enabled in a degree to master their dialect. The report of the feud between Mohammed Aboo Sammat and Shereefee had extended to Mohammed’s outlying Seriba in the Niam-niam country, and had grown into a rumour that all his people had been exterminated by Shereefee’s agents. For the purpose of obtaining more reliable information the manager of the Seriba, ninety miles away, had sent ten young men to Sabby, and their strange appearance very much surprised me. Everything which I had hitherto seen of the people served to strengthen my conviction that they were marked off from the other population of Africa by a distinct nationality of their own. Even the Bongo seemed here to arouse my interest more than at Ghattas’s Seriba, where, on account of their longer period of subjection, they had gradually lost very many habits and peculiarities of their race. I spent accordingly a good deal of my leisure in making sketches of their dwellings and their furniture, and in my numerous excursions round the villages, I persisted in investigating everything, however immaterial it might seem, as though I were examining the vestiges of the prehistoric life of a palisaded colony.