extending the palms of both flat towards you, exclaiming, « L ’affia ? —Are you well and happy?” Tahr, with his followers, after looking at me with an earnestness that was distressing to me for a considerable time, at last gained confidence enough to ask some questions, commencing, as usual, with “ What brought you here? they say your country is a moon from Tripoli.” I replied, “ to see by whom the country was inhabited ; and whether it had lakes, and rivers, and mountains like our own.” “ And have you been three years from your home ? Are not your eyes dimmed with straining to the'north, where all your thoughts must ever be ? Oh ! you are men, men, indeed ! Why, if my eyes do not see the wife and children of my heart for ten days, when they should be closed in sleep they are flowing with tears.” I had bought a sheep for a dollar, a coin with which he was not conversant; and he asked if it was true that they came out of the earth? The explanation pleased him. “ You are not Jews?” said he. “ No,” said I. “ Christians, then ?” “ Even so,” replied I. « I have read of you: you are better than Jews,” said he. .¿“ Are Jews white,'like you ?” “ No,” replied 1; “ rather more like yourself, very -dark.” “ Really;” said the sheikh : | Why, are they not quite white ? They are a bad people.”f After staying a full hour, he took my hand, and said, “ I see you are a sultan : I never saw any body like ybu. The sight of you is as pleasing to my eyes, as your words are to my ear. My heart says you are my friend. May you die at your own tents, and in the arms of your wives and family.” “ Amen,” said I ; and they all took their leave. June 30.—Tahr paid me another visit to-day. The Dugganahs were formerly Waday, and were strong enough to have; great influence with the sultan ; but by quarrelling among themselves, they lost their influence, and became subject to the Waday sultans. They generally passed one part of the year in the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and the other part by lake Fittre : in these two spots had been the regular frigues, or camps, for several generations. Sheikh Hamed his father, the present chief, who had more than one hundred children, found that another tribe of Dugganah had been intriguing with the sultan of Waday against him, and that he was to be plundered, and his brethren to share in the spoiL On learning this, he fled with his flocks and his wives, offered himself to the sheikh, El Ivanemy, and had since lived in his dominions. The account he wave of the Tchad was this—it formerly emptied itself into the Bahr-el-Ghazal by a stream, the dry bed of which still remained, now filled with large trees and full of pasture: it was situated betw’een the N ’Gussum and Kangarah, inhabited by Waday Kanemboos. f I could take you there,” said he, “ in a day; but not now—spears are now shining in the hands of the sons of Adam, and every man fears his neighbour.” He had heard his grandfather, when he was a boy, say, “ that it there gradually wasted itself in an immense swamp, or, indeed, lake* : the whole of that was now dried up. They all thought,” he said, “ the overflowings of the Tchad were decreasing, though almost imperceptibly. From hence to Fittre was four days: there was no water, and but two wells on the road. Fittre,” he said, “ was large; but not like the Tchad. His infancy had been- passed on its borders. He had often heard Fittre called the Darfoor water and Shilluk. Fittre had a stream running out of it was not like the Tchad, which every body knew was now a still water; a river also came from the south-west, which formed lake Fittre; and this and the Nile were one : he believed this was also * Sidi Barca, a hply man, was killed by the Biddomahs at the mputh o f this river; and from that moment the Bahr-el-Ghazal began to dry, and the water ceased to flow. A Borgoo Tibboo told us at Mourzuk, that the Bahr-el-Ghazal came originally from the south, and received the waters o f me Tchad; but that now it was completely dried up, and bones o f immense fish were constantly found in the dry bed o f the lake. His grandfather told him that the Bahr-el-Ghazal was once a day’s journey broad. M M
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