— I04 — poison some forty years ago, and attempts to cure his senility by being branded on the back (l). So too a vein of religious m3-sticism runs through hisnature and a superstitious regard for the shibboleths of his faith : the failure to recite the evening prayers with all due formalities, and in proper order, induces an irritating wakefulness at night, and the recrudescence of his old aches and pains. At any rate so he assures me.

With this regard for the performance of the rites of his religion goes a delight in the niceties of dialectical debate, and, strange attribute in a slavedealer, he takes almost as great pleasure in an abstract metaphysical discussion on the eternal verities as in working out the practical details for assaulting an enemy's camp.

To these qualities may be added a keen sense of humour (2), and a fecundity that is truly patriarchal.

He owns to having seventy sons of whom he knows (i) On almost the last occasion on which I ever saw him he had just been fired no less than a hundred and fifty times. The treatment has this much in its favour: so acute was the resulting pain that the invalid had no 0]5portunity for brooding on his other more serious ailments. "If firing can benefit a camel", is his argument, "then why not me ?"

(2) On one occasion Zubeir had been boasting about his conquests with even less restraint than usual, and talking of the vast countries that he had brought beneath his sway. Finally I remarked to him "Well any way in spite of all your victories you never tamed the elephant or the lion!" "No," he replied "I had to leave something for you English to do ! "