Not sure what to think

I approached this weeks reading with a bit of excitement, having been pretty interested in the travel narratives so far. I was especially intrigued to see that not only would we have an excerpt from Leo Africanus, but the Davis reading, which would, I assumed, give us more insight into Africanus' life. After reading a little background online and discovering that very little is known about Leo Africanus, it made me even more interested to read Trickster Travels, thinking perhaps that Davis knew something no one else did. And I tried to get into the reading, I really did. And I'm not sure why it was so difficult for me. The more I read, it became clear that a lot of what is written is surrounded by maybes and probablys. Davis attempts to get at the root of Africanus' life by bringing in a lot of history and mentions many people, making it difficult at times to keep everyone straight. Perhaps this was a difficulty only I encountered. The fact that people's names were sentences long did not help the reading flow, but of course this is something that cannot be helped. All was not lost though. Despite this particular reading's style failure to lure and hook me the whole way, I certainly found myself interested in learning some of the background story of the man whose excerpt we read in the Mancall reading. His life as a captured diplomat was fascinating. While he is known for his journey's to Africa, it seemed as though his journey did not end there. His knowledge made him an interesting man to many people and as a result he was taken to different places and worked with so many different people. It was also interesting to get a further glimpse into the process of getting and recording history in Africanus' time.