ch caravan established its bivouac
separately, and as soon as the camels were crouched, and after having
chained our Negro women by the feet and in groups of eight or ten, we
forced our Negro men to aid us, with the left hand which we had left
free, to unload our baggage, to arrange it in a circle and to stretch
in the center the tents which we had brought from Katsena. Two or
three of the oldest women that we had not put in chains, but who had
always had their two feet fettered, were directed to prepare our
supper. We ate in groups of four. This sad supper over, we placed the
guards around our camp, and made the slave women and men sleep as
before said."[12]

The next day the caravans were obliged to stop in consequence of a
Negro woman who gave birth to a child. This stop, however, was not
very lengthy. In a few hours she and her infant were placed upon a
camel and the caravan went forward. When the camp was pitched for the
next night, the leader, in making his rounds, ordered that the young
Negro mother be left unshackled, and that she be given some meat for
supper and allowed to sleep warmly upon a mat. But during the night,
when everything was quiet, the mother put her infant in a basket
filled with ostrich feathers, placed it upon her head, and made her
escape.

Next morning, upon discovering her flight, several bands of men were
sent out in different directions to find her. One of these, after a
few hours of search, found her in a thicket nursing her child. She was
led back to the camp, and two gun-shots recalled the other bands, and
the caravans then resumed their march. The caravans stopped at
Aghezeur to replenish their provisions and make repairs; and up to
that time none of the people had died, and only one camel was lost.

After a month's traveling they reached "Ogla d'Assaoua," which was a
rendezvous for all the marauding bands that returned from the Sudan.
It was particularly dangerous for the reason that it was the point at
which groups of caravans divided and proceeded in different directions
across the desert, and some of the independent caravans had to pass
near the Tuareg nomads.

"None of our slaves," says Daumas, "I am sure, will ever forget this
stop, for it was there that they were for the first time given their
liberty after being in irons a month. The men and women danced all day
after the fashion of their own country, until they fell prostrated
with heat and fatigue. Even those whose legs