Fezzan traders: their features, naturally large and ugly, are so much disfigured by the silver stud which they wear in the under lip, that no purchaser would be found for them ; besides the loss of the two front teeth, which are punched out to make way for the silver which goes quite through into their mouths, the weight of the metal, after a year or two, drags the lip down so as to make it quite he on the chin, and gives a really frightful appearance to the face: these poor creatures, therefore, who are generally of a strong make, and patient under their sufferings, guard the crops, and collect the harvest, and a year seldom passes without several of them being snatched away by the lions, who, crouching under cover of the ripening corn, spring on their prey and bear it off. August 18.—The twelfth day of the new moon, which was the 17th of the month, was a day of general feasting and rejoicing. Garments, according to the estimation in which the giver holds the receiver, are distributed by all great people to their followers: the sheikh gave away upwards of a thousand tobes, and as many bullocks and sheep. I t is the custom, on the morning of the Aid-Kebir*, for the sovereign with his suite to mount, and, after praying at a certain distance from the town, to return to it with all his people skirmishing before him. The sheikh had been suffering from an attack of the ague, and, therefore, this ceremony did not take place ; the people, however, drew bad omens from the circumstance, and said, that the sheikh not having mounted and prayed with his people was not right. On the day after, the sheikh sent us word that Hadgi Ali JBoo- Khaloom was on his way from Kano, and within two or three days of Kouka: this was the most gratifying intelligence that could have reached us, as our funds were all but exhausted, and we lived en* The anniversary o f Abraham’s offering up Isaac, or the meeting o f Pilgrims at Mecca. tirely on the provisions furnished us by the sheikh, with the exception of a little milk and a few fowls, which we purchased. On the 21st he arrived, and very much altered in appearance for the worse, as well as most of the people who had accompanied him ; the Fez- zaneers had all suffered exceedingly from the ague and fever, which disorders had carried off a greater number of the Fezzan and Tripoli merchants than any preceding year. The sheikh appeared pleased at Hadgi Ah’s return, said he hoped all would be now soon arranged, and that the courier from Tripoli would not long delay making his appearance ;' he had calculated upon his returning by the Aid-Kebir, and his non-arrival gave him uneasiness on'many accounts. Private information, it was said, had by several channels reached the sheikh, that the bashaw had it in contemplation to send an expedition for the purpose of taking possession of Bornou, under the joint command of Mukni the late, and Mustapha the present, sultan of Fezzan : this intelligence was also accompanied by an assurance, that while the English remained he was safe. Scarcely any line of policy could be more injurious to the interests of the bashaw of Tripoli, or his subjects, than a measure of this nature. He obtained slaves almost exclusively through the medium of the sheikh’s territory, which, since he had held the reins of government, was sufficiently safe for travellers, to induce merchants with large capitals for this country to proceed by way of Bornou to Soudan. The numbers of kafilas between that country and Fezzan had, within the last five years, greatly exceeded any former period; and in an equal proportion did the respectability of those traders who now accompanied them exceed that of the merchants previously in the habit of passing through Bornou. By an intercourse with these travellers, a great variety of merchandise was brought into the interior__ the ideas of the natives became enlarged, and, consequently, their desires increased. Trade was, in fact, but just beginning to be prosecuted with vigour by the inhabitants of eastern Soudan. Eu
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