March 8 and 9.—Both these days the numbers of persons who crowded my hut, from morning to night, were greater, and consequently their visits more pestering than common. Every little thing, from the compass to the pen and ink, from the watch to the tin cup out of which I drank, excited their curiosity; and as they now became bolder, they seized hold of every thing which they formerly only eyed at a distance. It was not, however, their curiosity alone that was excited—the possession was coveted, either for themselves or the sheikh, of every article: a looking-glass, and a small lantern, I rescued out of the hands of at least a dozen, a dozen times. A copy of Captain Lyon’s book, the fame of which had preceded us, in consequence of Doctor Oudney’s having shown it to some merchants at Mourzuk, was demanded twenty times a day, and it required all my patience to go over and explain the pictures as often as they required. It produced very different effects, but in all astonishment and in most suspicion. The sheikh had heard of it, and one of his slaves borrowed it for him of my servant, by stealth, as he did not wish it to be known that he had a desire to see it. For three days after this I was again and again applied to by all his chief people to see what I had drawn, or written, as they express it, of Bornou. I repeatedly assured them, that those in the book were not mine, that the person who wrote them was far away. It would not do; they shook their heads, and said I was cunning, and would not show them. They then changed their tone, and very seriously begged that I would not write them, that is, _draw_ their portraits; that they did not like it, that the sheikh did not like it, that it was a sin; and I am quite sure, from the impression, that we had much better never have produced the book at all. The sheikh expressed a wish that two rockets might be started, on a signal being made from the top of his house. I gave Karowash a blue light, with instructions how to make the signal: his heart, however, failed him when he got to the spot, and the signal was made by a wisp of straw. The first rocket went off nearly perpendicular, and with beautiful effect. I lessened very much the elevation of the second, and it flew over the town not more than a hundred yards higher than the tops of the huts; and bursting in its course, occasioned a universal scream, that lasted for some seconds. Its consequences I believe were not so serious as the first display of fire-works was at Mourzuk: there several ladies lost all present hopes of blessing their husbands with little pledges of love; and in one house the favourite slave of a particular friend of ours was put instantly to bed of a seven months’ child.