214 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

sion, was the only person who did not seem impressed by my presence. The fellow's face was disagreeable to me ; he was the death's-head at my banquet.

The stallion was a noble beast, so full of blood and fire that it was worth a month's journey through the Desert to bestride him. He was small, and his limbs were scarcely long enough for the breadth of his chest and the fulness of his flanks. He had, however, the slender head and brilliant eye of the Arab breed, and his powerful neck expressed a fine disdain of other horses. He was of the best Dongolese stock, but resembled in many points the famed Anatolian breed of Asia Minor. He pranced and caracoled impatiently as I forced him to accommodate his pace to that of the ignoble ass.

"Let him run!" said the Governor, as we reached a broad open square near the outskirts of the city. I slackened the rein, and he dashed away with a swiftness that almost stopped my breath. I am but an ordinary rider, but owing to the Turkish saddle, had no difficulty in keeping a firm seat and controlling the powerful steed. "We visited the mud fortress of Berber, which is a square structure, with a bastion at each corner, having embrasures for three cannon, and the Governor gave me to understand that they made a mighty sound, every time they were fired.' He then took me to the house of a French merchant, with a name something like D'Arfou. The merchant was absent in Cairo, but a black slave gave us admittance. We took seats in a cool portico, admired the Frenchman's handsome gray donkey and his choice cows, looked out the windows upon his garden, planted with fig, orange, banana and pomegranate trees, and were finally served with coffee, presented in heavy silver zerfs. A slave then appear-