The Slave, However, Was Recalled Before He Got Half-Way, And His Suspicious Master Took Back The Sextant-Frame, In Dread Of Being Overreached By The Purchaser In Its Value, Which Clapperton Did Not Fail To Deduct From The Price Agreed On.

The prince stated, that he kept two hundred civet cats, two of which he showed Clapperton.

These animals were extremely savage, and were confined in separate wooden cages. They were about four feet long from the nose to the tip of the tail, and, with the exception of a greater length of body and a longer tail, they very much resembled diminutive hyenas. They are fed with pounded guinea corn and dried fish made into balls. The civet is scraped off with a kind of muscle shell every other morning, the animal being forced into a corner of the cage, and its head held down with a stick during the operation. The prince offered to sell any number of them which Clapperton might wish to have; but he did not look upon them as very desirable travelling companions. Ateeko was a little spare man, with a full face, of monkey-like expression. He spoke in a slow and subdued tone of voice, and the Fellatas acknowledge him to be extremely brave, but at the same time avaricious and cruel. "Were he sultan," say they, "heads would fly about in Soudan."

One evening, on paying the gadado a visit, Clapperton found him alone, reading an Arabic book, one of a small collection he possessed.

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