The following summer (1794) having in some degree recovered my strength, I determined to go and reside for a time near the Sultan, as well to have an opportunity of supplicating for redress of what I had already suffered, as to seize any moment that might offer of pressing my request for permission to advance. On leaving the house which I had inhabited at Cobbé, a dispute had arisen with the owner of it, who wanted me to sign a declaration that nothing had been lost during my residence in his house. This, which was directly the reverse of the truth, I refused to do; and in consequence he called an assembly of _Fukkara_ or sacred judges. The result, after much contest, served to skreen him from the responsibility legally attached to his conduct, without averting the charge, and determined me never to return to his roof. On my arrival at El Fasher, my good friend the Melek Misellim being employed by his master in the South, I went under the protection of the Melek _Ibrahim_, one of the oldest persons in authority there, and lodged myself (as all strangers are obliged to lodge in the inclosure of some of the natives) in the house of a man named _Musa_, now only an inconsiderable officer, though one of the sons of Sultan _Bokar_. This Musa was one of the most upright and disinterested men I have known in that country, and indeed among the Mohammedans of any country. Calm and dignified in his demeanour, though poor and destitute of power, he never insulted, though his religion taught him to hate. No motive could have been strong enough to induce him to eat out of the same plate with a Caffre, but he was punctiliously observant of the rights of hospitality which that religion also dictated, and daily provided me with a portion of food from his kitchen. He often said that, as it was a precept of my faith to hate the Prophet, he was bound to encourage the same sentiment towards me; but that he was neither obliged to injure me, nor excused in doing so.