Before us was a pleasant valley, wherein were the ruins of huts that had been carried away by the waters. Ferajee invited me to visit the Water with him, and I went. In this neighbourhood the rocky heights assumed their boldest forms, many of the peaks being considerably elevated; all granite.
Some people were heard in the evening, when dark, and we fired several shots. The Tanelkums had seen men skulking behind the rocks during our short march.
_2d._--We rose early, and made a march of eight hours and a-half: country as yesterday. Our Kailouee escort left us at noon, to go to Aghooou and Janazaret, or Zanairas, their homes. I must write the characters of En-Noor, Deedee, and Ferajee hereafter. They are pretty well fixed in my memory. These individuals are amongst the number of persons who "turned out," to use the vulgar expression, better than we anticipated from their first transactions with us.
On encamping, Mohammed, the son-in-law of En-Noor, came to my tent, and told Yusuf that we must now pay for our escort, as we were within a few hours of Tintalous, and did not require it more; also that the people wished to go to their homes, for they had been collected from various parts of the country. I must observe, that, considering the time that elapsed between the departure of the courier from Seloufeeat and the arrival of the escort at Tintaghoda, these people had been collected very quickly, which showed En-Noor to be a man of business and authority.
I expected we should have some trouble to satisfy thirty-one people. Yusuf, aided by the Tanelkums, sorted out about eighty-seven reals' worth of goods. This was offered as sufficient, but did not content even the chief persons, much less the smaller gentlemen. We then added another burnouse, and other things, making up about one hundred reals. This the chiefs accepted; but not so the little men. They stormed and swore; and some of them even ran to seize our bales of goods. However, whatever we had given we should have had the same results, and we must expect similar quarrels all through Africa until our journey's end. I observed, at last, that many took their portions and retired, and I felt confident that all would finish without violence being done us.