_12th._--We started early; the weather always cool, with fresh breezes from the east. All our people seem in good health. I got up rather stiff, having had a good fall from my horse yesterday. We made only three hours and a-half, part north-east and the rest due east. When I dismounted I felt less fatigued, and wrote up my journal. We passed several villages _en route_ during these few hours; they occur, indeed, only about half-an-hour apart: viz. first in order after Bogussa, Gerremari, then Lekarari, Algari, a village of fighi pedagogues, Giddejer, and then Collori, where we have halted. It is said we shall still be three days before we get to the Sultan Minyo, and we have to pass Gamatak, Barataua, Birmi, Wonchi, Tungari, and finally, on the third day, early, we are to arrive at Gurai, the capital, governed by Minyo or Minyoma. Bogussa is the first district under the sway of this personage. We have in his name a remarkable instance of how in Africa names of cities and countries are confounded with those of their provinces. Hitherto, I and my interpreter had always taken it for granted that Minyo was the name of the capital of the province, not of the prince; so we understood from everybody, and only to-day we learn that Gurai is the name of the capital, whilst the province is called after the name of the prince, i.e. Minyo, or Minyoma.[21]
[21] It is worth while leaving this mistake of Mr. Richardson or his informants, as an illustration of the great difficulty that exists in eliciting accurate facts from natives of Africa and other uncivilised countries.--ED.
Our route this morning lay through a remarkably fine district, teeming with fertility, and requiring only the hand of industry to render it the richest country in the world. Not a ten-thousandth part of the soil is cultivated. We met a troop of schoolboys with their masters; their boards, bedaubed with Arabic characters, would have been an effectual protection for them against a troop of horsemen a thousand times larger than ours. But, nevertheless, a poor woman, or a girl with a bowl of milk or a little butter, could not pass unscathed. Such is morality here. May there not, however, be some promise in this respect for education? A woodman left his axe a moment on the roadside; one of our troopers immediately went off and seized it. The woodman, returning, followed the trooper to the Kashalla, and falling down, and throwing dust over his head, begged for his axe as for his life. The Kashalla could not withstand the appeal, and ordered his trooper to restore the axe. The fellow had concealed the axe, and it was lucky the owner discovered the thief so soon. The poor man went away very thankful, thanking me also. I believe I may be some check on these depredations, for I told my interpreter last night that I never saw a village, or any people, pillaged in the Christian countries; in fact, that I could not have hitherto believed that men could do the things which I saw done that day by the servants of the Kashalla. It is probable he will mention what I said to some one, and it will get to the ears of the said Kashalla. The Africans, in plundering one another, appear as if they were avenging some old grudge; as if they remembered the various occasions when they themselves had been pillaged. They rob with wonderful _gusto_.