On the 21st of September I resumed my journey towards the Nile, a further distance of 175 miles. On the way my little party, which, besides the camel drivers, consisted of only a native of Berber and a dog which I had brought from Europe, was increased by falling in with two young pilgrims on their way from Mecca. I was unable to complete my proper retinue until I should reach Khartoom, since the men who had offered me their services in Egypt appeared so weakly that I considered them unfit for undertaking any journey into Central Africa. The addition therefore of these two blacks for the approaching march of sixteen days through mountain solitudes was very welcome. Their armour consisted of a Turkish sabre, and this, together with my gun, seemed completely sufficient protection against the natives, whom Sir Samuel Baker a few years before had so successfully mastered with the help of an umbrella, that a considerable number of them voluntarily laid down their arms. The vigilance of the dog was a security against any nocturnal attack, and indeed, at two different times he had given warning to my little caravan just at the right time. [Sidenote: RIVAL WIVES.] Less welcome to me was the company of a disagreeable old fanatic, who, followed by two wives, was on his return journey from the Holy City of the East to his home in the far west. He was a priest from Kano in Haussa, and when he told of the wonders of the world which he had seen on his long journeys, I could always set him right, having really seen infinitely more than he had. I completely non-plussed him by my geographical knowledge of the Western Soudan, and after the details which I gave of that country, he was, however reluctantly, at last obliged to believe that I had actually been there. But any friendship between us was rendered impossible by the constant noise and contention caused by his wives. All amicable relations came utterly to an end when I found myself driven as I did to come forward as the champion of the oppressed. Of the priest’s two wives, one had faithfully followed her husband from his home, and now saw herself supplanted by the other, whom the priest had married at the tomb of the Prophet. The fellow had begun to impose on his first wife in the most shameful manner by the withdrawal of every choice morsel and of every harmless indulgence; consequently the two women were continually quarrelling, and literally laid on to each other by the hair. The man himself always took the part of the new wife, and cruelly maltreated the old. At last it became too much for me to be the daily witness of such revolting scenes, and I took the old sinner to task, and tried to inculcate in him due ideas of woman’s rights and dignity, so that he could tell his countrymen in Haussa what we thought on such matters. The indifferent camel drivers and the still more indifferent camels, both alike as unmoved as the black rocks in their solemn stateliness, alone surveyed this little tragedy.