We met a party of huntsmen, with three bullocks to carry their ghaseb.
They had six dogs, and told us they were off after the giraffe. A few
lizards now and then glanced over the path, and at every thirty or forty
yards rose a busy ant-hill.

En-Noor and I converged to-day from the backs of our respective camels.
He asked me particularly if I liked stout women, and whether stout women
were found in England. I replied, gravely, that this species occurred in
all Christian countries; a piece of zoological information which seemed
highly to gratify him. His highness still pretends he does not know
where he is going--that is, whether to Zinder or Tesaoua.

We encamped near a shallow wady, the first we have seen in this part of
the country; i.e. a well-defined dry bed of a river.

CHAPTER X.

My Barracan--Spontaneous Civility on arrival in Damerghou--Ghaseb
Stubble--Cactus--Water-Melons--Party of Tuaricks--Boban Birni--Huts of
Damerghou--Tagelel--Women of the Village--Population of the
Country--Complaisant Ladies--Festivities--Aquatic Birds--Dancing--A
Flatterer--A Slave Family--A new Reason for Wife-beating--Hazna
Dancers--Damerghou, common ground--Purchase of Ghaseb--Dethroned
Sultan--Yusuf--Mohammed Tunisee--Ophthalmia--Part with Barth and
Overweg--Presents to Servants--Sheikh of Fumta--Yakobah
Slave--Applications for Medicine--Boban Birni--Forest--At length enter
Bornou ground--Daazzenai--Tuarick Respectabilities--Detachment of the
Salt-Caravan.

_Jan. 6th._--We came seven hours. The weather is always thick, as for
many days past; but the wind not so strong, nor the air so cold. We had
even some drops of rain; and, probably, the rain here is not so
constant, in its fall in summer-time, as is generally supposed. I took
out my last barracan, as some precaution against the threatening clouds.
This barracan excited everybody's attention; every one admired it, and
asked for it. I was plagued to death by the people, and I vowed I would
not take it out again be the weather what it might. The same demand had
been repeatedly made for my poor carpet; so, on the following day, I
took it off from the camel.

An hour before we pitched tent; we passed a town on the top of a hill
composed of huts, some covered with skins, and some made of straw. Our
encampment is in a wady, near a cluster of hovels. The people came
running to welcome us, by offering ghaseb for sale. Two volunteered to
assist us in clearing a clean place