The town of Anay consists of a few huts built on the top of a similar mass of stone to the one we had just left; round the base of the rock are also habitations, but their riches are always kept aloft. The Tuaricks annually, and sometimes oftener, pay them a most destructive visit, carrying off cattle and every thing they can lay their hands on. The people on these occasions take refuge at the top of the rock; they ascend by a rude ladder, which is drawn up after them; and as the sides of their citadel are always precipitous, they defend themselves with their missiles, and by rolling down stones on the assailants. The people who came out to meet us had each four short spears and one long one. Jan. 5.—The Sultan Tibboo, whose territory extends from this place to Bilma, was visiting a town to the south-west of Anay, called Kisbee, and he requested Boo-Khaloom to halt there one day, promising to proceed with him to Bilma; we accordingly made Kisbee this day, distant five miles. Our animals got some pickings of dry grass. Kisbee is a great place of rendezvous for all kafilas and merchants; and it is here that the sultan always takes his tribute for permission to pass through his country. It is eight days distant from Aghadis, twenty-four from Kashna, and, by good travelling by the nearest road, twenty-seven from Bornou[14]. The sultan had neither much majesty nor cleanliness of appearance: he came to Boo-Khaloom’s tent accompanied by six or seven Tibboos, some of them really hideous. They take a quantity of snuff both in their mouths and noses; their teeth were of a deep yellow; the nose resembles nothing so much as a round lump of flesh stuck on the face; and the nostrils are so large, that their fingers go up as far as they will reach, in order to ensure the snuff an admission into the head. My watch, compass, and musical snuff-box, created but little astonishment; they looked at their own faces in the bright covers, and were most stupidly inattentive to what would have excited the wonder of almost any imagination, however savage: here was the “os sublime,” but the “spiritus intus,” the “mens divinior,” was scarcely discoverable. Boo-Khaloom gave the sultan a fine scarlet bornouse, which seemed a little to animate his stupid features. We had a dance by Tibboo-men performed in front of our tents, in the evening: it is graceful and slow, but not so well adapted to the male as the female; it was succeeded by one performed by some free slaves from Soudan, who were living with the Tibboos, enjoying their liberty, as they said. It appears most violent exertion: one man is placed in the middle of a circle, which he endeavours to break, and each one whom he approaches throws him off, while he adds to the impetus by a leap, and ascends several feet from the ground:—when one has completed the round, another takes his place.