Our encampment was near a little village of twenty huts, called Daazzenai, placed under a rock of red stone. The country of Damerghou, in this direction, is separated from Bornou by about eleven hours of forest, or some thirty miles English--a sufficient distance to divide two countries, especially in Africa. The trees were larger to-day, and some of considerable altitude. Many pretty yellow blossoms, glowed on a species of shrub not unlike the laburnum. I observed scattered in the forest small mounds of mud, wasting away to the level of the ground; there were many of them; the birds perch thereon. We have seen a few nice families amongst the Tuaricks and their slaves, but these are mostly foreigners. There is the family of the Tripoline slave; her husband is a pleasant, quiet man, and one of En-Noor's household; she has a daughter and one cade-lamb. Then there is the Bornou fighi and his wife. These people are so affable, that they always have visitors near their little tent. They have also a cade-lamb. Their tent is a curiosity. It is just large enough for one of them to creep in--not for two. I suppose the fighi enters at night, and leaves his wife to sleep at the door. A detachment of the salt-caravan passed us to-day for Zinder. The whole force of the salt-caravan this year could not be more than fifteen hundred. Two divisions were with us of Kailouees, one in advance, each of five hundred, and the Kilgris' division of five hundred. So much for the boasted ten thousand camels which were gone this year to bring salt! From En-Noor one could not possibly get correct statistics, for, being a thorough Kailouee and a Tuarick, he magnifies everything connected with his people before strangers, and particularly to us. It was very amusing to see all the little children warming themselves in the evening at the fire, or feeding the flames with brushwood, which they easily collected. CHAPTER XI. March for Zinder--Enter the City--Reception--Delighted to escape from the Tuaricks--Letters from Kuka--Hospitable Treatment--Presents for the Sarkee and others--Visit the Shereef--His Duties--Audience of the Sarkee--Servility--Double-skulled Slave--Powder and Shot--Portrait of the Sultan--Commission from Kuka--European Clothes--Family of En-Noor--Tour of the Town--Scavengers--List of Sultans of Central Africa--Ancient Haussa--The Market--Money--Conversation with the Shereef--The Sultan at Home--Mixed Race of Zinder--Statistics--Personages of the Court.