No tent was pitched, but I made myself comfortable by drinking the remainder of a bottle of port wine, which I began yesterday. I felt a little queer, and fancied I had injured myself by drinking so much milk; so I took to a bottle of port wine, and finished it in three times. I have felt much better since. I could very well drink a bottle a-day, and believe I should be much stronger for it. However, such wine should be kept for convalescence after fever. I have still a bottle, and some Cyprus wine--very good wine. _20th._--We started as soon as the day broke and the sun showed himself, and made five hours south-east over country the same as yesterday. But the forests of doom-palms were larger and thicker, and valleys also were more extensive. What is strange, no wild animals show themselves, not even in these sedgy, reedy swamps. I could only see scattered on the ground the feathers of the guinea-fowl. One or two black-and-white crows were noticed. Our people say that all the crows are of this colour in Bornou. In Ashen there are both species, the black, and the black-and-white. Our people also tell us, that on the other route, which the Kashalla wished to travel, there are numbers of elephants, and much water. Here is water enough in the rainy season for all such animals. We had still the tholukh, as well as the doom, and a tree like a large sea-shore plant cropped by the camels. We saw no ghaseb cultivation, or any sort of grain, till we arrived at Gusumana, where we found wheat, cotton, and pepper in the gardens. The village of Gusumana is situated on a hill, overlooking a steep broad valley, full of the doom-palm. This village has therefore its houses constructed partly with the branches and trunks of this tree, which serve very well. I am housed in a most comfortable little hut made of this material, and nicely thatched; the door is composed of some thin strips of the leaves of the palm, which, as you enter, give way, and then return to their place, just as would a curtain. In this way the air always plays freely into the hut, murmuring sometimes between these fragments of leaves. I have felt much less fatigue since I mounted the camel, although I have made the longest day upon it that has been made since we left Zinder. I recommend to all travellers the camel in the desert, or in Soudan. I believe the ill-health of the former expedition was much increased by always riding horses. Thank God, my strength still keeps up.