ake the Kashalla--Slaves for
Kanou--Continue the Journey--People of Deddegi--Their Timidity--Horse
Exercise--Cotton--Strange Birds--Occupation of Men and Women--State of
African Society--Islamism and Paganism--Character of the Kashalla--A
Dogberry--Guddemuni--Cultivation--Beggars--Dancing Maidens.

A Shereef has come here to-day from Tesaoua, and reports that Overweg
left that place for Maradee, about eight days since, with a Tuarick of
En-Noor. The city of Maradee is but an hour from Gonder, and is about
twice the size of Zinder. The whole occupation of these two cities is
that of razzia, and their subsistence and riches are all derived from
this source. These places also swarm with Tuaricks, Kilgris, Iteesan,
and Kailouees, who join the blacks of Maradee and Gouber in their
slave-hunting expeditions. A grand razzia is being perpetrated by the
united forces of the Sultans of Maradee, Gouber, and Korgum, with the
assistance of a thousand Tuarick horse, on the territories of the Sultan
of Sakkatou. The cavalry of the marauders consists of some five
thousand, and there are more than this number on foot. My informant says
they will go near Kashna, perhaps to its very gates. So it seems the
Sultan of Sakkatou, with all his power and his great cities, is unable
to check, or apparently even to avenge, the depredations committed upon
his most important provinces. It is said that the product of this razzia
will be some of the finest slaves in this part of Africa, many of them
almost white. We are to leave here to-morrow. Inshallah! It is too bad
to be kept so long here, when Haj Beshir has sent orders for us to come
immediately.

_7th._--The morning was cool; thermometer at sunrise, 58 deg.. I slept
little, being angry at being kept here so long. I read Milton to divert
my mind awhile from African subjects.

There seems to be little industry in Zinder. The education of the
greater part of the males is to fit them for razzias, and this must be
considered as the principal cause of the unfeeling manner with which the
blacks hereabouts look upon, their captive brethren. These captives are
their means of livelihood; they live on the products of the razzias,
and, of course, the superior intellects with which they may come in
contact countenance all their proceedings; for the foreign merchants are
equally interested with them in their inhuman expeditions. Africa is
bled from all pores by her own children, seconded by the cupidity