As for what I have said about thieving, I can testify that all the time we were amongst the Tuaregs not the very smallest larceny was committed by them, although all manner of very tempting articles, such as various stuffs, beads, looking-glasses, knives, etc., were lying about in our boats, on deck, and in our cabins. Nothing could have been easier than for our Tuareg visitors to run off with a few odds and ends, and if I had seen any one take anything I should probably have said nothing, for fear of a dispute leading to a rupture. At the sight of these riches of ours, which surpassed anything they had ever seen before, the eyes of our guests would gleam with desire for their possession, and they would ask for things, keep on begging for them without ceasing, but they would not take anything without leave. I often had hard work to resist their importunity, but, for all that, not one of them ever appropriated a single object however small. I said, it is true, a few pages back that the Tuaregs were pillagers, and the reader may very well ask how they could be pillagers yet not thieves. We must, however, judge people by their own consciences, not by the ideas current amongst ourselves. Now to pillage and to thieve are two essentially different things amongst the Tuaregs. All nomads are pillagers, and as a matter of fact war with them is generally simply a pillaging expedition. Migrations are constantly taking place as a very necessity of their mode of life, and as a result _casus belli_ as constantly arise. We must, however, even in such cases as these, do the Tuaregs the justice to add that they generally first make an appeal to diplomacy. In meetings known amongst them as _myiad_, the question at issue is discussed, chiefly by the most influential marabouts, and they have recourse to arms only if conciliation does not answer. Even then it is all fair and open warfare. The warriors even challenge each other as in a tournament to single combat. There are _razzi_ too, no doubt, when the Tuaregs make a descent on the enemy’s camp and pillage it, carrying off the flocks and herds if possible, and by thus depriving them of the means of subsistence, compelling them to sue for peace. There is little foundation for the charge brought against the Tuaregs of pillaging caravans, they respect them when the right of passage has been paid for. This payment is a very just one, guaranteeing the protection of the tribe against the gentlemen of the road, for in the Sudan, as in Italy, there are brigands, but they are not Tuaregs. On the other hand, if traders, thinking themselves strong enough to force a passage, refuse to pay the tribute demanded, the caravan becomes the lawful prize of any one who chooses to attack it.