_Dar Guimer._—The welcome I received was of the chilliest. Two hundred yards from the village a son of the Sultan Idriss came all alone to meet me, and announced that his father had started a few days earlier for El Fasher; and then, skirting the village, he led me down the valley to a spot where a dilapidated hut, not far from a well and at the entrance of what had once been a piece of enclosed land, was offered me in which to take up my quarters. I had great difficulty in obtaining a few provisions, and two days were spent in animated discussions before I could get a guide and four hired camels to replace those lent me in Tama. Even so I only got them thanks to the good offices of a Zagawa chief who had come to greet me on my passage because he had on a former occasion found his relations with the French authorities of Wadai turn out greatly to his advantage. But I could not get the sort of current information about the country and its inhabitants usually given to travellers by the natives. However, when I showed my surprise at the residence of the Sultan of Guimer at Koulbouss, which is in Tama territory, the son of Sultan Idriss condescended to explain that that installation was only temporary, having been authorized towards 1910 by Sultan Hassan of Tama by reason of the raids the Sultan of Guimer had had to undergo at the hands of the Forian bands of Ali Dinar. His return to his own capital was to take place shortly, the occupation of El Fasher by the Anglo-Egyptian troops having put an end to these incursions. I left Koulbouss on 22 June early in the morning, with no great confidence in the success of my enterprise, for the guide assigned to me did not seem any too satisfied at the idea of taking me to Kebkebia, from which we were separated by a stretch of almost completely uninhabited country nearly 120 miles across, and in which the water- points were few and quite possibly dried up. Very luckily, everything went as well as could be imagined; I saw no trace of the Senoussist raid, so called, which local rumour credited for some time with having caught me by surprise, taken me prisoner, and carried me off as a hostage to Koufra. A few wells were found, very nearly dry, but we were careful in husbanding our supply of water. We saw very few inhabitants and met no caravan. What worried me most, and most unexpectedly, was the grazing question, for the country, though covered with scrub, was so dried up that our camels hardly ever got a satisfying feed and grew most disquietingly thin.