a loose shirt only the most convenient covering, as thè sand could be shaken off as soon as it made a lodgment, which, with other articles of dress, could not be done, and the irritation it caused produced a soreness almost intolerable : a little oil or fat from the hand of a negress (all of whom are early taught the art of shampooing to perfection), rubbed well round the neck, loins, and back, is the best cure, and the greatest comfort, in cases of this kind ; and although, from my Christian belief, I was deprived of the luxury of possessing half a dozen of these shampooing beauties, yet, by marrying my negro Barca to one of the bashaw’s freed women slaves, as I had done at Sockna, I became, to a certain degree, also the master of Zerega, whose education in the castle had been of a superior kind ; and she: was of the greatest use to me on these occasions of fatigue ór sickness. I t is an undoubted fact, and in no case probably better exemplified than in my own, that man naturally longs for attentions and support from female hands, of whatever colour or country, so soon as debility or sickness comes upon him. Towards the evening, when the wind became hushed and the sky re-asSumed its bright and truly celestial blue, the Tibboo Sheikh, and about thirty of his people, male and female, returned, but their supplies were scanty for a kafila of three hundred persons. The sweet milk turned out nothing but sour camel’s milk, full of dirt and sand, and the fat was in small quantities and very rancid. We, however, purchased a lean sheep for two dollars, which was indéed a treat. Great precaution must always be taken on procuring meat, after long abstaining from animal food : eating more than a very moderate quantity ever disorders the stomach, which is often succeeded by fever, ague, and all its attendant evils : although not gormandizers, some of us suffered from too great an indulgence in the luxuries of boiled mutton. Illness here should be the more avoided, from its being altogether of a nature different from illness elsewhere : the attacks are sudden, and render a person incapable of any exertion, leaving him in a state of weakness and debility scarcely credible to those who have not been eye-witnesses of the fact. Some of the girls who brought the milk, &c. were really pretty as contrasted with the extreme ugliness of the men: they were different from those of Bilma; were more of a copper colour, with high foreheads and a sinking between the eyes: they have fine teeth, and are smaller and more delicately formed than the Tibboos who inhabit the towns. The men brought, as a present to Boo- Khaloom, two beautiful maherhies ; one of them was a most superb animal, and measured nine feet and a half from the ground to the middle of the back: they also brought a horse or two for sale. Their animals are their only riches; and Mina Tahr told me, that their tribe had more than five thousand camels : on the milk of these animals they entirely live for six months in the year, and for the remaining half year they manage to raise from their barren soil sufficient gussub (a species of millet) to satisfy their wants. Formerly,, when they had little or no communication with Fezzan and Bomou, they were nearly naked, as their crops of cotton were scarcely sufficient, from the dryness and poverty of the soil, to afford them covering. Now the Kafilas bring them indigo, cotton, and ready- spun linen in strips, with which they make tobes and wrappers: for these, when they are not given as tribute, the Tibboos exchange the skins and feathers of the Ostrich, with dried meat of gazelles and bullocks. Two of the horses were very handsome, though small; and on remarking their extreme fatness, I was not a little surprised at learning that they were fed entirely on camels’ milk, corn being too scarce and valuable an article for the Tibboos to spare them: they drink it both sweet and sour; and animals in higher health and condition I scarcely ever saw. I t is quite surprising with what terror these children of the desert view the Arabs, and the idea
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