I had to stay four days in the neighbourhood of Kebkebia, the first part of the time being spent in going back to Rémélé to make arrangements for the return of my escort and hired camels to Abéché; I also hoped to make the astronomical observations I had been unable to make on the night of my arrival. But I had my labour for my pains. All four days the sky remained almost constantly overcast and the rain fell in torrents, the clouds came in great masses from the west-south-west, and, striking the mountain chain at the foot of which lie Rémélé and Kebkebia, they dissolved in rain that fell at frequent intervals, while on the other side of the chain there fell only rare and insignificant showers. It was only the last day that I could make the planetary observations required for fixing the positions of Kebkebia, mount Dourboullé, and the summit of the Djebel Marra; this last is notably higher than the 6000 feet above the sea attributed to it by the maps of Africa: my first calculations allowed me to fix its altitude somewhere between 9000 and 9800 feet. I left Kebkebia on July 2, starting in the afternoon in an easterly direction, skirting the foot of mount Dourboullé on its southern side. The track, cleared of scrub for a width of a dozen yards, lay along a ground rocky indeed, but presenting no serious difficulties. We came across no villages, though the country is inhabited. Here and there on the hillsides one could see stone enclosures, in groups of twenty to thirty, which till a short time previously had been villages whose inhabitants had withdrawn higher up the mountain in order to escape, so at least we were told, from the former sultan’s incessant and vexatious requisitions. They were not themselves described to us as particularly desirable, being inclined to banditism; but I can offer no evidence on the question, for they did not trouble the march of my little caravan.