do you do for
servants?"

He was much astonished at hearing that regular wages were paid, and that
even soldiers were fed, clothed, and received pay from government.

"You are a beautiful people," he observed.

The usual question was also put: "What are you come for?" Clapperton
replied, "To see the country--its rivers, mountains, and inhabitants,
etcetera. My people had hitherto supposed yours devoid of all religion,
and not far removed from the condition of wild beasts, whereas I now
find them to be civilised, learned, humane, and pious."

On another occasion Clapperton exhibited a planisphere of the heavenly
bodies. The sultan knew all the signs of the zodiac, some of the
constellations, and many of the stars by their Arabic names. He was
greatly interested with the sextant, or, as he called it, "the
looking-glass of the sun." Clapperton showed him how to obtain an
observation with it.

The sultan made minute inquiries as to the conquests of the English in
India, and also the reason of their attack on Algiers, evidently
suspecting that they contemplated similar proceedings against his
country. Clapperton explained that the King of England had a vast
number of Moslems who were his willing subjects, and that their object
in India was to protect the natives and to give them good laws, not to
tyrannise over them; while, with regard to Algiers, the Algerines had
been punished because they persisted in making slaves of Europeans.

The sultan, however, as after events proved, was far from satisfied, his
fears being increased by the Arabs, who were aware that the chief object
of the English was to open up a trade from the west coast with the
country, and, should they succeed, they themselves would thus be
deprived of their trade across the desert from the north.

At Clapperton's request the sultan ordered a chart of the Quorra to be
drawn by one of his learned men, who asserted that that river entered
the sea at Fundah, near a town called Jagra, governed by one of Bello's
subjects.

This made the traveller still more anxious to proceed down that river to
the coast, but the sultan, though he at first promised an escort,
ultimately declined sending it, declaring that he could not sanction so
rash an enterprise, and that his guest could only return home by the way
he had come.

From an Arab chief residing here Clapperton obtained much information
about Mungo Park and the way in which he had lost his life, whic