All being friends now, and contented, the day was given to repose and joy. The king's servant came and told me, by way of secret, that we could not do less to please the Shekh than stay with him a week at Beyla, and I believe it would not have displeased him; but after so much coming and going, so much occasion for talk relative to me, I was resolved to follow Hagi Belal's advice, and press on to Sennaar before affairs there were in a desperate situation, or some scheme of mischief should be contrived by Fidele. One thing Shekh Adelan's servant told us, that he had, by his master's orders, taken from Fidele the present I had given him, though he had already made it up into a gown, or robe, for himself. "He is a poor wretch, says the Shekh of Beyla; he has spent two years of the king's revenues from Atbara, and nobody has supported him except Shekh Adelan, whose daughter he married, but he now has given him up since he has fully known him; and, if our troubles do not follow quickly, I suppose one of these days I shall have him here in his way to Sennaar, never to return; for everybody knows now that it was in hatred to him, and for the many faithless and bad actions he was guilty of, that the Arabs have destroyed all that part of the country, though they have not burnt a straw about Beyla." We had again a large and plentiful dinner, and a quantity of bouza; venison of several different species of the antelope or deer-kind, and Guinea-fowls, boiled with rice, the best part of our fare, for the venison smelled and tasted strongly of musk. This was the provision made by the Shekh's two sons, boys about fourteen or fifteen years old, who had got each of them a gun with a match-lock and whose favour I secured to a very high degree, by giving them some good gunpowder, and plenty of small leaden bullets.