up to the middle as I crossed, the horse I rode being a small one, and at times off his legs and swimming. I halted on the other side to dry my clothes, and after an hour’s rest under a tree, when my clothes were pretty well drained and half dry, I again started, and, about five in the evening, arrived at the city of Kano. CHAPTER V. JOURNEY FROM KANO TO THE CAMP OF BELLO, AND FROM THENCE TO SOCCATOO. On entering Kano, I immediately bent my way to the house of my former agent, Hadje Hat Salah Byoot; but I soon saw that both he and the Arabs that were present would rather I had come from the eastward: they were all in fact in low spirits about the war with Bornou, which had shut them out, for some time past, from all communication with Fezzan or Tripoli. The caravan for these countries had left Kano twenty days ago for Kashna, to try whether they could not succeed to get home by way of the Tuaric desert. This has deprived me of the opportunity of sending home my journals and letters; but it would have been a great risk, as they have to go through the capital of the son of the former sultan of Kashna, who is in rebellion against the Fellatas; and the Tuarics have not allowed a caravan to pass, except those of the merchants of Ghadamis, for these many years past; and on these they levy a contribution. Hadje Hat Salah Byoot, my former and present agent, is the richest man in Kano, an Arab of the tribe of Majabra, inhabiting the country to the east of Augela, adjoining it. They, like the Augela people, are great merchants. He was formerly the agent and merchant of the hereditary governors of Fezzan; he was the cause of their being removed and dispersed by the bashaw of Tripoli, who would still have continued the family in the government, if they had not prevented his people of Tripoli, and the other towns on the sea-coast, from trading to the interior. They even prevented, all in their power, the bashaw’s sending Mohamed El Mukni with presents and a letter to the king of Waday; they went so far as to endeavour to stimulate the chiefs of the Tibbo tribes to cut them off, offering them a reward and protection if they would do so. Mukni and his people were accordingly attacked on their return, but by their bravery beat the Tibbos in every attack. When they found they could not destroy them in this manner, they bribed the guides, who led them astray in the desert, where all their slaves, and most of their camels, perished; and Mukni arrived at Tripoli with the remains of the merchants, who were mostly all ruined. A few years after this, the bashaw sent another mission under Mukni, with presents to the sultan of Bornou, and was again accompanied by a number of merchants from the sea-coast. The governor or sultan of Fezzan did not try by open force this time to oppose Mukni’s passing Mourzuk, but sent again to the Tibbo chiefs and Hadje Salah, to Bornou, to prejudice the sultan against Mukni; but all without effect.