one man, who
can scarcely consume or utilise the produce, whilst others have not a
stone whereon to lay their heads, and depend even for a burial-place
upon charity, is not to be observed in this barbarous country.

The children of the Wady, up to the age of seven or eight years, go
about perfectly naked, which may partly account for the bronze-black
colour of their skins. The Tuaricks are generally fairer than the
Fezzanees, though some of these latter are fair as the Moors on the
coast, whilst others are black as very niggers.

We received a visit from the Nather, or civil governor of the Wady. He
is a Fezzanee, Abbas by name; and thankfully received the present of a
handkerchief. The Kaid, or military commander, is a Moor from Tripoli.
Everybody seems interested about us, and there is a perfect flux of
visits. All the authorities around seem to make our arrival a holiday.
We are quite the fashion. The chaouch gets drunk in the evening on
leghma, furnished by the Nather, who wants to worm out all the news; and
there is little doubt that he has learned the whole truth, and a good
deal more. El-Maskouas, the Turkish officer employed in collecting
contributions for Mourzuk, arrived at the camp and brought letters from
M. Gagliuffi. He also told us that the Sheikh of Aghadez had not yet
returned from his pilgrimage to Mekka. The motions of all these desert
magnates are circulated from mouth to mouth as assiduously as those of
our Mayfair fashionables.

Among our visitors was Haj Mohammed El-Saeedy, the owner of our camels.
His social position answers to that of an English shipowner. He is a
marabout of great celebrity in this country, and moves about in an
atmosphere of respect. By the way, when it became clearly impressed upon
my mind that the Fezzanee camel-drivers were merely employed for hire,
and had no property whatever in the beasts they drove, my opinion of
them began to rise. It would have been impossible to take more care of
the camels than they did.

We remained stationary in the Wady, from the 1st of May to the evening
of the 3d, when we moved on to Toueewah. After dark was passed Azerna,
in the neighbourhood of which stood the ancient town, celebrated for its
ruins. The modern place, though presenting a martial kind of appearance
with its battlemented mud walls, contained only ten inhabitants, who
live like so many rats in holes or under the piles of ruins. On the 4th,
when the people removed our beds in