The Sultan of Asoudee is still with us, and keeps up a sort of state about him, although he is a poor weak fellow indeed, compared to En-Noor. He has not paid us a visit, and we have not seen him. En-Noor, probably, does not wish to bother us with such a visit. The musicians who saluted us this morning came from him, but they did not know it was a feast-day of Christians, and only came to pick up what they could get. I sent Madame En-Noor a piece of white loaf-sugar, and told her it was a Christmas-box. She received it with many thanks; so I have chronicled all our doings this day. I read the two first chapters of St. Luke in Arabic. We had no provisions, or anything with which we could produce the resemblance of a plum-pudding. As to roast beef, we have some bits of preserved beef, which we eat with our baseen and hamsa. Amidst so many uncertainties in Central Africa we may not see another Christmas-day. O God! whenever the time of our departure is come, may we be found relying for salvation on that Saviour, thine only-begotten Son, born on this day. Overweg and I conversed late at night on the mechanism of the heavens, and the antiquity of the world, according to the received theories of astronomers and geologists; the dark and black vault above, sprinkled over with brilliant points, being the object which first set our thoughts in motion. The stars are time itself, and also illustrations of the passage of light through the universe. The earth was once a hotter orb, passing successively from a vaporous to a fluid, and then a solid state. The northern climes were once torrid zones, from the evidence of the fossil remains and from coals, which are masses of tropical trees. Such were the speculations in which we indulged.[12] [12] I have not thought it advisable to abridge or alter this _naïve_ account of a Christmas-day on the southern borders of the Sahara. Mr. Richardson seems already to feel certain presentiments of the fate that awaited him. In other places I have omitted devotional passages; but in this it seemed to me that it would be unjust to the memory of this amiable traveller to do so.--ED. _26th._--We stay here to-day. There is some trouble amongst those restless tribes, the Kaltadak and Kalfadaï; and Yusuf was sent for this morning by En-Noor to write some letters for him to these marauding tribes. They are fighting amongst themselves. The route from the North will never be safe for Europeans until these tribes are properly subjugated; and when will that time come? It is now reported that we all go to Zinder. I shall be glad of this opportunity to get a few dollars, and then make the best of my way to Sakkatou. But our delay here renders this trip always less certain, and seems to point out that I shall go first to Bornou.