The Servant Took From The Bundle A Shirt, Two Pair Of Trousers, And Two Pieces Of Parchment Used For Sketching By Major Denham.

The only other articles, Ateeko said, were a trunk, a broken sextant, and a watch; the latter had been destroyed, as he alleged, in their ignorant eagerness to examine its structure.

He then invited Clapperton to visit him on the following morning, when they might fix the price of what he wished to buy, to which Clapperton assented; but on reconsidering the matter, he thought it prudent first to consult the gadado, particularly as the sultan had gone on an expedition, and was not expected to return for five days. Clapperton began to fear lest a bad construction might be put upon his visit to this mean prince, who, on the death of his father, Bello the First, had aspired to the throne, and even had himself proclaimed sultan in Sockatoo; from the mere circumstance of his brother Bello, the present sultan, having expressed the intention, during his father's lifetime, of resigning the splendour of royalty for the tranquillity of a holy and learned life. Ateeko had even the audacity to enter his brother's house, preceded by drums and trumpets; and when Bello inquired the cause of the tumult, he received the first intimation of his brother's perfidy in the answer, "The sultan Ateeko is come." Bello, nowise disconcerted, immediately ordered the usurper into his presence, when Ateeko pleaded, in vindication of his conduct, his brother's proposed disinclination to reign; to which the sultan only deigned to reply, "Go and take off these trappings, or I will take off your head." Ateeko, with characteristic abjectness of spirit, began to wring his hands, as if washing them in water, and called God and the prophet to witness that his motives were innocent and upright, since which time he has remained in the utmost obscurity. According, however, to another authority, Bello confined him to the house for twelve months, and then a reconciliation took place between them. We are apt to speak of the sovereigns of barbarous and uncivilized nations as deficient in those virtues for which civilized sovereigns are or ought to be distinguished; but we suspect that few of the latter would have acted towards the usurper of his throne with the same magnanimity as was displayed by the Fellata sovereign.

On visiting the gadado, he told Clapperton by no means to go to Ateeko whilst the sultan was absent, as his visit at this juncture might be regarded with a very jealous eye by the people, who would not hesitate to charge him with a plot to place Ateeko on the throne, by the assistance of England. The gadado undisguisedly expressed his contempt at Ateeko's conduct, and assured him that it was entirely without the sanction of the sultan.

On the return of the sultan from the army, permission was given to Clapperton to purchase from Ateeko the sorry remains of Major Denham's baggage; accompanied, therefore, by El Wordee, he went to the prince's house, and after waiting for some time in the porch of a square tower, they were introduced into an inner coozee, hung round with blue and yellow silk, in sharp-pointed festoons, not unlike gothic arches.

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