Niger

He remained in the same hut with Johnson and
Demba. The former had quite lost his spirit,
half-starved as the three of them were. They were
supplied with food once a day, at midnight. This
was a bowl of kouskous, together with some salt
and water. Sometimes the attendants brought the
meal ; sometimes they forgot. Mungo, with a cool
curiosity, observed the effects of hunger and priva¬
tion upon himself, how sheer agony of hunger might
be transmuted into a sharper interest in Arabic,
for example.
At length the drowse of life in Benowm was
broken. The Emir resolved to ride north and
fetch his laggard consort, Fatima. This was on the
16th of April. Two days later, a fresh visitor took
up residence in Mungo’s hut. He was a merchant
from Walet, a town in the state of Biroo. Strangely,
he refrained from spitting upon Mungo. He had
travelled afar and acquired the easy tolerance of all
travellers, even those of Islam. Timbuctoo ? It
was a little town in the south-east, small compared
with Houssa or Walet. Did Mungo intend to
journey there ? Then he had better avoid the
Walet route. Christians were looked upon as the
devil’s children. No Christians were to be found
in the country, though there were Jews in Tim¬
buctoo itself. But even these wore the same clothes
as the Arabs, and said much the same prayers.
His presence nevertheless cheered Mungo, and
he spent a comparatively easy week in conversation
with this ‘ shereef’. On the 24th another arrived,
140