rnment sent these biscuits
for them, who can eat ghaseb, ghafouley, and any grain of this country,
and thrive on such food. The Germans gave away their biscuit,
complaining that it was an embarrassment to them. This encouraged the
people to plunder me of mine, and now I have little left for the rest of
my travelling in Africa during the present journey.

_12th._--We started early; the weather always cool, with fresh breezes
from the east. All our people seem in good health. I got up rather
stiff, having had a good fall from my horse yesterday. We made only
three hours and a-half, part north-east and the rest due east. When I
dismounted I felt less fatigued, and wrote up my journal. We passed
several villages _en route_ during these few hours; they occur, indeed,
only about half-an-hour apart: viz. first in order after Bogussa,
Gerremari, then Lekarari, Algari, a village of fighi pedagogues,
Giddejer, and then Collori, where we have halted. It is said we shall
still be three days before we get to the Sultan Minyo, and we have to
pass Gamatak, Barataua, Birmi, Wonchi, Tungari, and finally, on the
third day, early, we are to arrive at Gurai, the capital, governed by
Minyo or Minyoma. Bogussa is the first district under the sway of this
personage. We have in his name a remarkable instance of how in Africa
names of cities and countries are confounded with those of their
provinces. Hitherto, I and my interpreter had always taken it for
granted that Minyo was the name of the capital of the province, not of
the prince; so we understood from everybody, and only to-day we learn
that Gurai is the name of the capital, whilst the province is called
after the name of the prince, i.e. Minyo, or Minyoma.[21]

[21] It is worth while leaving this mistake of Mr. Richardson
or his informants, as an illustration of the great
difficulty that exists in eliciting accurate facts from
natives of Africa and other uncivilised countries.--ED.

Our route this morning lay through a remarkably fine district, teeming
with fertility, and requiring only the hand of industry to render it the
richest country in the world. Not a ten-thousandth part of the soil is
cultivated. We met a troop of schoolboys with their masters; their
boards, bedaubed with Arabic characters, would have been an effectual
protection for them against a troop of horsemen a thousand times larger
than ours. But, nevertheless, a poor woman, or a girl with a bowl of