And a half ago, against the superstition,
absurdities, and abuses practised in those days, we had ever since
professed to follow simply what was written "in the book of our Lord
Jesus," as they call the New Testament, and thence received the name
of Protestants. He continued to ask several other theological
questions, until Clapperton was obliged to confess himself not
sufficiently versed in religious subtleties, to resolve these knotty
points, having always left that task to others more learned than
himself.
The sultan was a noble-looking man, forty-four years of age, although
much younger in appearance, five feet ten inches high, portly in
person, with a short curling black beard, a small mouth, a fine
forehead, a grecian nose, and large black eyes. He was dressed in a
light blue cotton tobe, with a white muslin turban, the shawl of
which he wore over the nose and mouth, in the Tuarick fashion.
In the afternoon Clapperton repeated his visit, accompanied by the
Gadado, Mahomed El Wordee, and Mahomed Gomsoo, the principal Arab of
the city, to whom he had a letter of introduction from Hat Salah, at
Kano. The sultan was sitting in the same apartment in which he
received him in the morning, and Clapperton laid before him the
presents, in the name of his majesty the king of England. Amongst
these presents, the compass and spy glass excited the greatest
interest, and the sultan seemed highly gratified when Clapperton
pointed out, that by means of the former he could at any time find
out the east, to address himself in his daily prayers.
