ple of Adamaua or Yakoba
(name of the sultan) eat human flesh. The whole story of the Yamyam is
of the remotest antiquity, and has come down to us with many
embellishments; but, if once true of the people hereabouts, it can no
longer be authenticated by present facts, for as I have said, the Moors
themselves represent Boushi to be like Tripoli.

The people from Fezzan and Tripoli, the traders and all, complain of the
liver complaint; most of them have been ten or fifteen years in this
country, travelling through Bornou and Soudan. I gave them small doses
of calomel. All people at this season, blacks and strangers from the
north, are full of rheumatism, which they describe by saying they have
pains in all their joints and all their limbs. The presence of a
Christian having medicines heightens and multiplies these diseases;
there is, however, in reality, a good deal of rheumatism, arising from
the cold winds of the north-east.

This evening we had again our drummers and the dancers, as on every
preceding night. The girls have a laughable game amongst themselves, the
boys, however, sometimes joining--that of throwing one another up and
forwards by the arm-pits; the girl thus thrown forwards is expected, if
she play her part well, to light firmly on her feet. If not, she rolls
about and over, and the accidents that then occur are probably
considered a great part of the amusement.

_19th._--We were hurried off this morning early by the Kashalla, and I
had no time to go and take leave of the Sultan. The weather is fresh. I
mounted my gift camel; the second grand gift from the princes of Africa.
We made a long day, from morning till after dark, about ten hours,
through an undulating country. Some of the hollows were very deep, and
enclosed stagnant reedy pools, of generally bad water, remaining from
the past rains. For the first three or four hours of this march we had a
scattered forest of dwarfish trees, mostly dwarf tholukhs. These are
succeeded by small forests of the doom-palms, lining the pools and
swamps in the valleys, and looking very fresh and pretty. I was
astonished to see so few animals; indeed, we only observed now and then
a small bird. What was the more strange, no water-fowl was seen in the
pools.

But the country to-day was all desert--no grain cultivating, which
perhaps may account for the absence of birds and fowls. Said prevailed
over the Kashalla, and we have taken the desert route, being five days
n