In these southern climes, all matters of business, as well as pleasure, are transacted before the generality of people in England have well finished their night’s rest, and this morning I rode out by daylight to see the ceremony of a Bornou wedding. The lady was from Angornou; and the bridegroom’s friends, to the number of twenty or thirty, all mounted and in their best clothes, went to give her welcome: she was mounted on a bullock, whose back was covered with blue and white turkadees, and followed by four female slaves, laden with straw baskets, wooden bowls, and earthen pots; while two other bullocks carried the rest of the dowry, which consisted of a certain number of turkadees and tobes. She was attended by her mother, and five or six young ladies, who acted as bride’s maids. We galloped up to them repeatedly, which is the mode of salutation. The women cover their faces, and scream their thanks; the men, however, wheel their horses quickly, and return with their eyes cast to the ground, it being considered as extremely indelicate for them to look upon the bride. The lady, after this, proceeds to the bridegroom’s house with her mother, and there remains shut up until the evening, when she is handed over to her justly impatient lord: for the whole day he is obliged to parade the streets with a crowd after him, or sit on a raised seat, _à la sultan_, in his house, dressed in all the finery he can either borrow or buy; while the people crowd in upon him, blowing horns, beating drums, and crying “_Engouboron degah! Alla Kabunsho! Alla Kiara!_” “May you live for ever! God prosper you! Grey hairs to you!” to all which he makes no answer; but looks more foolish than one could suppose it possible for any man in so enviable a situation as that of a bridegroom to do. August 11.—The sheikh sent this morning to say, that, as we mentioned yesterday the state of our funds, any money that we stood in need of he would immediately furnish us with—that while we were under his protection, we should want for nothing: we, however, said with every feeling of gratitude, that, as we were not quite pennyless, we would wait a few days, until all the people arrived from Soudan.