and the side tresses being neatly plaited and frizzled out at the ends. There are also many women of Bornou among them, who imitate the same style. Guinea fowls abound in this part of the country: I went out after we halted, and shot five of them, besides a wild duck and a quail. Mohamoud El Wordee, one of two Fezzanee merchants, to whom we were particularly recommended by the sheikh of Bornou, and who had always appeared to me to be a man of strong natural sense, was thrown into a sad fright by losing a charm or amulet off his horse’s neck, with a number of which almost all are equipped. This charm is nothing more than a short sentence from the Koran. Had he lost an only child he could scarcely have been more afflicted. I gave him a scrap of paper to make another, which Hadje promised to write out for him. Dec. 26—This morning after sunrise, Fahrenheit’s thermometer stood at 49°. The merchants were busily employed firing off their guns and putting them in order for the Bedites, ail ancient race of native Bornouese, who have not embraced Islamism, and who occupy an adjoining territory, chiefly protected .by its natural fastnesses. They are held both in dread and abhorrence by all the ,faithful. Every thing being ready at eleven o’clock, we broke up our encampment. Our kafila was now of an immense size. We had been joined at Bedeekarfee by 500 people at least, who were waiting there for an Arab kafila to pass through the Bedee country ; for all Arabs are esteemed by the natives here extremely formidable, as well from the possession of fire arms, as from their national intrepidity: Their muskets, however, in comparison of those of Europe, are of the meanest quality; and so uncertain in their fire, that they are hardly worth more than their weight as old iron. The courage, too, of most of these Arabs is very questionable. When successful they are overbearing and cruel in the extreme, and in bad fortune are in like degree servile and abject. The natives of Haussa carry their merchandise on the head, and go armed with bows and arrows. Those of Bornou convey their goods chiefly on asses and bullocks, and are armed with spears. The Haussa merchants deal in tobacco, Goora nuts, Koghelor or crude antimony, cotton cloth in the web, or made into dresses called tobes and turkadees, and tanned goat skins. Goora nuts are the produce of Ashantee and other parts near the west, and are chewed by all people of consequence, on account of their agreeable bitter taste, not unlike that of strong coffee, and the supposed virtue of curing impotency. They are even in great esteem as far as Fezzan and Tripoli, where they bring the exorbitant price of two dollars a score. Crude antimony in powder is applied by both sexes to the eye-lashes, to render them dark and glossy. Native cloth, or gubga, as before mentioned, is extremely narrow, seldom more than four inches in width. The tobe is a large shirt with loose hanging sleeves like a waggoner's frock, generally of a dark blue colour, and is an indispensable part of male attire throughout central Africa. The turkadees are articles of female dress, commonly of blue cotton cloth, about three yards and a half long and one broad. Sometimes they are made of alternate stripes of blue and white (of the breadth of African cloth), or are all white, according to fancy. Women of better circumstances commonly wear two turkadees, one round the waist, and another thrown over the shoulders. These articles are bartered in Bornou for trona or natron, common salt and beads; which, together with coarse tobes, are also carried by Bornouese adventurers to Haussa. Our road lay over an elevated clayey plain, with low trees, most of them mimosas. We passed the ruins of several towns, and such of our travelling companions as were best acquainted with the country informed us it was well peopled before the Felatah invasion. At sunset we halted, being already in the Bedee country. Dec. 27-—The temperature this morning was remarkably low, and the water in our shallow vessels was crusted with thin flakes of
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