pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and is now on his way to Jerusalem and
Damascus. He has travelled extensively in all parts of Central Africa,
from Dar-Fur to Ashantee, and professes to be on good terms with the
Sultans of Houssa and Bornou. He has even been in the great kingdom of
Waday, which has never been explored by Europeans, and as far south as
Iola, the capital of Adamowa. Of the correctness of his narrations I have
not the least doubt, as they correspond geographically with all that we
know of the interior of Africa. In answer to my question whether a
European might safely make the same tour, he replied that there would be
no difficulty, provided he was accompanied by a native, and he offered to
take me even to Timbuctoo, if I would return with him. He was very curious
to obtain information about America, and made notes of all that I told
him, in the quaint character used by the Mughrebbins, or Arabs of the
West, which has considerable resemblance to the ancient Cufic. He wishes
to join company with me for the journey to Jerusalem, and perhaps I shall
accept him.


_Sunday, April_ 18.

As Quarantine is a sort of limbo, without the pale of civilized society,
we have no church service to-day. We have done the best we could, however,
in sending one of the outside dragomen to purchase a Bible, in which we
succeeded. He brought us a very handsome copy, printed by the American
Bible Society in New York. I tried vainly in Cairo and Alexandria to find
a missionary who would supply my heathenish destitution of the Sacred
Writings; for I had reached the East through Austria, where they are
prohibited, and to travel through Palestine without them, would be like
sailing without pilot or compass. It gives a most impressive reality to
Solomon's "house of the forest of Lebanon," when you can look up from the