This was the first conversation I had with this man, who alone contributed to make my stay in the place endurable. I could scarcely have expected to find in this out-of-the-way place a man not only versed in all the branches of Arabic literature, but who had even read (nay, possessed a manuscript of) those portions of Aristotle and Plato which had been translated into, or rather Mohammedanized in Arabic, and who possessed the most intimate knowledge of the countries which he had visited. His forefathers, belonging to that tribe of the Fúlbe which is called Fittobe, had emigrated into the southern parts of Wádáy, where they settled in the village of Bárek-alla. When he was a young man, his father, who himself possessed a good deal of learning, and who had written a work on Háusa, had sent him to Egypt, where he had studied many years in the mosque of El Ázhar. It had then been his intention to go to the town of Zebíd in Yemen, which is famous amongst the Arabs on account of the science of logarithms, or el hesáb; but when he had reached Gunfúda, the war which was raging between the Turks and the Wahábíye had thwarted his projects, and he had returned to Dár Fúr, where he had settled down some time, and had accompanied a memorable expedition to the south-west as far as the borders of a large river, of which I shall have another occasion to speak. Having then returned to Wádáy, he had played a considerable part as courtier in that country, especially during the reign of ʿAbd el ʿAzíz, till the present king, Mohammed e’ Sheríf, on account of his intimate relation with the prince just mentioned, had driven him from his court and banished him from the country. After having once made the acquaintance of this man, I used to visit him daily; and he was always delighted to see, or rather to hear me, for he had nobody with whom he could talk about the splendour and achievements of the Khalifat, from Baghdád to Ándalos (Spain)—particularly of the latter country, with the history of whose towns, kings, and literary men he was intimately acquainted. He listened with delight when I once mentioned the astrolabe or sextant; and he informed me with pride that his father had been in possession of such an instrument, but that for the last twenty years he had not met a single person who knew what sort of thing an astrolabe was.