3j6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
war, upon which he immediately difmounted, and, upon feeing this, I ahghted Hkewife. We fahited one another very courteoufly. He was a man about feventy, with a very long beard, and of a very graceful appearance. It was with the utmoft difficulty I could prevail upon him to mount his horfe, af& he declared his intention was to walk by the fide of my mule till he entered the town of Teawa. This being over- ruled, by an invincible obflinacy on my part, he- was at laft conftrained to mount on horfeback, which he did with an agility only to be expefted from a young maa of twenty.
Being mounted, he fliewed us a variety of paces on horfe* back. All this, too, was counted a humiliation and polite- nefs on his part, as playing tricks, and prancing on horfe- back, is never done but by young men before their elders, or by meaner people before their fuperiors. We palled by a very commodious houfe, where he ordered my fervants to unload my baggage, that being the refidence alTigned for me by the Shekh. He and I, with Soliman on foot by the fide of my mule, crofTed an open fpace of about five hundred yards, where the market is kept ; he protefted a thoufand times by the way, what a fliame it was to him to. appear on horfeback^ when a great man. like me was riding on a mule..
A LITTLE after, having paiTcd this ixjuare, we came to the Shekh's houfe, or rather a colledion of houfes, one llorey high, built with canes j near the ftreer, at entering, there was a large hall of unburnt brick, to which we afcended by four or five flcps. The hall was a very decent one, co- vered with lira w- mats ; and there was in the m.iddle of it,,
a cliairi,
