_25th._--The days are now pretty hot, and the nights correspondingly cool. We have a good deal of wind. I wrote a letter to Drs. Overweg and Barth jointly, calling upon them to assist me in case the Sfaxee would not wait for his money until the return of the courier. Dr. Overweg consents. I wrote out the Tuarick alphabet.
The account of the Tibboos pounding the camels' bones and bleeding their animals to make paste, is confirmed by the Gatronee of the Germans.[4] He says, moreover, that this is the way in which they proceed. Every Tibboo must fast three days before he thinks about eating. If on the fourth day he do not arrive at the _belad_, or country, he then takes his left sandal from his foot, and stews or soddens it, making something of a soup. These sandals being leather, or untanned hide, it is, perhaps, not impossible to make of them a palatable soup! If on the fifth day he find no village, he then devours the sandal of his right foot. After this, still not finding a village, he collects bleached camels' bones and bleeds his camel as before mentioned.
[4] People are called here by the nation, and even town, to which they belong, or in which they were born, as sometimes in Europe.
A Tibboo always has a girdle with seven knots, and when travelling hard takes in, as the sailors would say, a reef every day; if after seven days he find nothing to eat, he is considered hungry and unfortunate. The three Tuaricks who followed us from the well of Aisou declared that they had had nothing to eat for fifteen days; and there cannot be a doubt of the fact, that both the Tibboos and the Tuaricks can, on a pinch, remain without food for a considerable time--say ten or twelve days.
A Tuatee, who knows Algiers well, arrived here this afternoon, and is going with us to Zinder. He brings an extraordinary report about the copy of the treaty which I left with Haj Ahmed at Ghât. He says he heard it read, and from it learned that "the Queen of England is now in Tripoli, and wishes to come and live in Ghât, and has offered to buy half Ghât." Such is the nature of Saharan reports.
More authentic intelligence arrived to-day by a courier, who made the journey from Ghât to Seloufeeat in fourteen days--sufficiently quick. This courier brings a warning from Khanouhen to the caravans now proceeding to Ghât, not to come in twos or threes, as they were wont, but to come altogether, as he fears reprisals from the Shanbah and the Haghar.