this account they never let their mouths be seen except when eating, as I have often had occasion to observe. They have no lords among them, but the rich men are respected somewhat more than the rest. They are of ordinary stature, and very lean, wearing their black hair frizzled over their shoulders like the Germans, and grease it daily with fish oil, which gives them a nasty smell; yet they consider this as modish. They are extremely poor, egregious liars, the greatest thieves in the world, and very treacherous. They have never heard of any Christians except the Portuguese, with whom they had war for thirteen or fourteen years, in which many of them were carried off as slaves, as has been already mentioned. Many of these people informed me, that, when they first saw ships under sail, which had never been beheld by any of their ancestors, they took them for large birds with white wings, that had come from foreign parts; and when the sails were furled, they conjectured, from their length, and swimming on the water, that they must be great fish. Others again believed that they were spirits, who wandered about by night; because they were seen at anchor in the evening at one place, and would be seen next morning 100 miles off, either proceeding along the coast to the southwards, or put back, according as the wind changed, or the caravels might happen to steer. They could not conceive how human beings could travel more in one night than they were able to perform themselves in three days; by which they were confirmed in the notion of the ships being spirits. All this was certified to me by many of the Azanhaji who were slaves in Portugal, as well as by the Portuguese mariners who had frequented the coast in their caravels. About six days journey by land from Hoden, there is a place called Teggazza[5], which in our language signifies a chest or bag of gold. In this place large quantities of salt are dug up every year, and carried by caravans on camels to _Tombucto_ and thence to the empire of _Melli_, which belongs to the Negroes. Oh arriving there, they dispose of their salt in the course of eight days, at the rate of between two and three hundred _mitigals_, or ducats, for each load, according to the quantity, and then return with their gold. [1] This is erroneous, as there are several towns on the coast of Morocco beyond this Cape, as Saffia, Mogadore, Santa Cruz, and others. Cape Cantin is in lat. 32°30'N. and the river _Sus_ in 30°25', which is 140 miles to the south. There are no towns on the coast beyond that river; but the northern limit of the _Sahara_, or great desert, is in lat. 27°40', 186 miles to the south of the river _Sus_, and is surely inhabited by wandering Arabs. Even the great desert, which extends 750 miles from north to south, almost to the river Senegal, is thinly interspersed by several wandering tribes of the _Azanhaji_.--E.