freshness and coolness of the air was most delicious, just as is the case after a fall of rain; and summer lightning was flashing through the southern sky. The ghaladíma also was very anxious to be gone; but the army of the Góberáwa being ready to start on an expedition, on a grand scale, against the territory of the Fúlbe, we could not leave the place before we knew exactly what direction the hostile army would take. They having at length set out on their foray, on the 7th of March, we began to watch their movements very anxiously, each of these two powers,—the independent pagans as well as the conquering Fúlbe,—having in their pay numbers of spies in the towns of their enemies. Only two days before the Góberáwa left their home, they killed Bú-Bakr the chief spy whom ʿAlíyu, the sultan of Sókoto, entertained in their town. In the company of the ghaladíma there was a younger brother of his, of the name of Al-háttu, who had lost the better portion of the character of a free man by a mixture of slave-blood, and behaved, at times, like the most intolerable beggar; but he proved of great service to me in my endeavour to become acquainted with all the characteristic features of the country and its inhabitants. Besides this man, my principal acquaintance during my stay in Kátsena this time was a Tawáti of the name of ʿAbd e’ Rahmán, a very amiable and social man, and, as a fáki, possessing a certain degree of learning. He had been a great friend of the sultan Bello, and expatiated with the greatest enthusiasm on the qualities and achievements of this distinguished ruler of Negroland. He also gave me the first hints of some of the most important subjects relating to the geography and history of Western Negroland, and called my attention particularly to a man whom he represented as the most learned of the present generation of the inhabitants of Sókoto, and from whom, he assured me, I should not fail to obtain what information I wanted. This man was ʿAbd el Káder dan Taffa (meaning, the son of Mústapha), on whose stores of knowledge I drew largely. My intercourse with ʿAbd e’ Rahmán was occasionally interrupted by an amicable tilt at our respective creeds. On one occasion, when my learned friend was endeavouring to convince me of the propriety of polygamy, he adduced as an illustration, that in matters of the table we did not confine ourselves to a single dish, but took a little fowl, a little fish, and a little roast beef; and how absurd, he argued, was it, to restrict ourselves, in the intercourse with the other sex, to only one wife. It was during my second stay in Kátsena that I collected most of the information which I have communicated on a former occasion with regard to the history of Háusa.