ght. I read several
pieces of Milton's poetry. I went to the gardens to see the wells:
people fetch water from the wells of the gardens, where the supply is
sufficiently abundant. I observed in the gardens the henna plant, the
cotton plant, the indigo plant, and the tobacco plant. All these appear
to be commonly cultivated in the gardens of Zinder. There are scarcely
any other vegetables but onions, and beans, and tomatas; but the people
cultivate a variety of small herbs, for making the sauce of their
bazeens and other flour-puddings. The castor-oil tree is found in the
town and in the hedges of the gardens in abundance.

A Tuarick woman was brought here to-day for me to cure. She had been in
an ailing, wasting state, for the last four years; the husband said that
the devil had touched his wife, and reduced her to this state. Another
woman was brought with an immense wen upon her abdomen. I have given
away nearly all my Epsom salts, and now supply emetics. It is necessary
to purge these people immediately, in a few hours, or they think you do
nothing for them, or will not or cannot do them any good. Many Tuaricks
come from the open country. We have also frequent cases of ophthalmia,
mostly from the villages around.

This evening I was charmed by the vocal sounds of a strolling minstrel,
attended by two drummers with small drums, called _kuru_, and a chorus
of singing-girls collected from the neighbourhood. The chorus-singers
sang like charity-school girls at church. Altogether the singing was
more pleasing than the monotonous, plaintive sounds of the Arabs.

It seems difficult to get off. Everybody is making preparations for our
journey, from the Sultan to the lowest slave sent from Kuka to assist in
the transport of the boat and our baggage, and yet nothing is done!

I parted with my new acquaintance, Medi, to-day, a soldier and slave of
the Sarkee. He has been occasionally my cicerone in Zinder. He had been
captured from a child, and is now past middle age, and knows little of
the loss of home. He was a friendly chap, and gave me all the
information he could make me understand in Soudanee and Bornouee.

The evening was warm; a most pestilential sort of mist usually covers
the ground at dark. After an hour or so it clears off--a few meteors now
and then.

_4th, Dies non._--It is said we shall probably leave this to-morrow.
Read Milton all day. Weather sultry hot; did not go out. Thermometer in
the evening, at da