w very cold.

I received a visit from the young Shereef, whose conversation smacked a
good deal of a disagreeable curiosity respecting my movements and
intentions in Central Africa. I therefore gave him a very ordinary and
cool welcome. This fellow has been here some time, and never offered to
pay us a visit before. En-Noor has been feeding him during his stay. He
displayed a good deal of shrewdness, and is well acquainted with the
Christians of the Mediterranean. He is going to visit his brother in
Zinder, and then returns to Tripoli by the way of Bornou and Mourzuk.
Like all these shereefs, or marabouts, he pretended that had he been
with us, or had we travelled with him from Mourzuk to Tintalous, no one
would have dared to molest us; an assertion wholly false, for the
Tuaricks care little for marabouts when they are bent on plunder.

A young woman has just arrived from a distant village, with the express
object of procuring from the Taleb (Overweg) a medicine to produce
abortion: she says she has been gadding, "barra" (out of her mother's
house), and is frightened lest she should get a good beating. On
Overweg's refusing to give her any such medicine she burst out into a
pathetic lamentation, and talked loudly of what her parent would do to
her. Young ladies often think of their mothers a little too late under
these circumstances.

A slave of the Sultan of Aghadez arrived this morning, in six days from
the capital, to inquire after the health of En-Noor. He brings no
particular news, but says he saw Barth at Aghadez.

"Man is to man the surest, deadliest foe," has been quoted from the poet
as most applicable to the moral and social state of Africa. It may truly
be said to be our case, for hitherto we have suffered little in this
town except from men. Looking also around us, the people suffer less
from the arid country which they inhabit than from the violence which
they inflict one upon another.

I learned from Yusuf yesterday evening, that for every dollar I take
from the Sfaxee, if I pay in Mourzuk, I must give two. I was greatly
afflicted at this positive declaration, but scarcely believe it; if it,
however, prove to be the case, I must by all means find money in Soudan.
It will be a hard fight, indeed, to keep down the expenses of this
expedition; however, every effort must be employed to effect this
desirable object.

Maradee, I learn, is three days west from Tesaoua; and this latter
place is two from Zin