ees call the Milky Way, which appears at this season nearly
overhead early in the evening, "the road of the dates," it being now the
time in which the dates ripen.

Late in the evening a troop of twenty maharees came riding straight up
to our tents. Although none of our people were gone to bed, although all
were up and about talking, not a single person saw them coming but
myself; and I only saw--none of us heard, so noiselessly did they steal
over the sand. This troop merely came in to bait for the night. They,
however, brought some person with them who is about to be married to a
woman of Tintalous.

_27th._--I rose early, having slept little on account of noises of
various sorts, which continued all night long. First, there was a drum
perpetually beating, announcing rudely enough the approaching nuptials;
then there was a cricket singing shrill notes at my head; and then there
was the screech-owl making the valley of Tintalous ring again with its
hideous shriek. Add to all, between the roll of the big noisy drum, the
cries and uproar of the people. This morning there are groups of people
squatting all about. Two maharees are riding round and round one group.
Before another is a man dancing as indelicately as a Moorish woman of
the coast.

News of still another razzia ushers in the day. A small caravan, it is
reported, was attacked a few days ago, on the route between this and
Zinder. The principal merchant was killed, and all the goods and slaves
carried away. The few agents now in Tintalous see clearly that this
route will become, for the future, safe only for large caravans. En-Noor
says of the villages which were attacked by the tribe of Oulimid, that
the people must have been chickens not to have defended themselves; but
the fact is, the whole country is now, to a certain extent, abandoned to
the pillage of lawless banditti.

In the evening the people contrived to celebrate the preliminaries of
the approaching nuptials. The bride, I now find, is no less a personage
than the daughter of En-Noor,--a full-grown desert princess. The Sfaxee
and several other foreign merchants fired in the evening salutes in
honour of the occasion. The drum was again kept beating all night,
accompanied again by the crickets and the screech-owl. Oh for a quiet
sleep!

_28th._--Late in the evening another troop of twenty maharees came to
visit En-Noor, and assist at the nuptials. They were known at some
distance by the jingling of