I visited the souk again in the evening, and made a few small purchases of curiosities; but there are very few things to be got in this market, and those mostly come from Kanou. What things are made here are of the rudest manufacture. I passed the slave-market, and was greatly shocked to see a poor old woman for sale amongst the rest of human beings. She was offered for six thousand wadâs, about ten shillings in English money. It is quite impossible to conjecture of what use such a poor old creature can be. The Shereef Kebir made a present of a little boy to Saïd of Haj Beshir this evening. The poor little fellow looked very pitiful. He was stolen from Daura. He has only one cheek marked with the shonshona, because his mother lost all the children which she bare before him; and the custom is, when a mother thus loses her children, to scarify only one cheek. The mode of supplying the slave-markets of the north and south is truly nefarious, and perhaps surpasses all the wickedness of the Tuaricks. The Sarkee of Zinder wants gour-nuts, and has no money to purchase them; he sends his servants or officers to a neighbouring village, and they steal in open day two or three families of people, and bring them to the Sarkee. These poor wretches are immediately exchanged for the gour-nuts. A boy steals some trifling articles--a few needles; he is forthwith sold in the souk; and not only he, but "if the Sarkee wants money," his father and mother, brothers and sisters: and "if the Sarkee is very much pressed for money," his familiars search for the brothers of the father, and all their relations. Indeed, crime is a lucrative source of supply for the prince, and what his vengeance spares from the executioner is sold into foreign slavery. In the approaching razzia, the Sarkee is expected to take the common route of Daura, and carry off the villagers subjected to the Sheikh; for, contrary to the opinion of the Shereef Kebir, the Sarkee will not attack the Kohlans, who are the subjects of the Fullan, but the _bonâ fide_ subjects of the Sheikh. He will probably bring back one thousand slaves or captives. He will send two hundred to the Sheikh, with such a message as this:--"I have eaten up the Kafers of Daura; here is your offering of two hundred Kafers." Should the Sheikh receive a remonstrance from the Bornou governor of Daura, that the Sarkee of Zinder has come upon him and carried off Muslims, his subjects, he will shut his ears. In all these razzias the lesser chiefs act an important part, and each gets a share. A chief who fights under the Sarkee captures fifty slaves, and gives up to the Sarkee twenty-five or thirty, keeping the rest for himself and people.