The song of these Fezzan girls is Soudanic. Their musical instrument is called _rhababe_: it is an excavated hemisphere, made from a shell of the gourd kind, and covered with leather; to this a long handle is fixed, on which is stretched a string of horse hairs longitudinally closed and compact as one cord, about the thickness of a quill. This is played upon with a bow. I was once of a party with _Sidi Mintesser_, the brother of the sultan, at a small house, some distance from the palace, when he ordered a _Kadanka_ to be brought, and with whom he soon after withdrew. On her return to the company, she was asked with a significant smile where she had been. She immediately took up her instrument, played upon it, and sung, in the Arabian language, “Sweet is Sidi Mintesser, as the waters of the Nile, but yet sweeter is he in his embraces; how could I resist?” As a natural consequence of the great freedoms allowed to the sex in Mourzouk, there are more women of a certain description to be found in that capital, than in any other of the same extent and population; and the general character of improvidence, and consequent misery and distress, belong as fully to the frail sisterhood of this place, as of any other. There are various sorts of venereal disorders prevalent in Fezzan; that imported from Soudan is the worst. The common lues venerea brought from Tripoly and Cairo, is called _franzi_, or the _frank_ evil. For the cure of either species they use salts, and the fruit _handal_, (colycinth), as powerful cathartics; and the sores, if any, are at the same time washed with natron water, or dissolved soda. These remedies seldom fail, unless the disease has taken a very deep root. The other maladies prevalent here are hæmorrhoides, no doubt greatly increased by the immoderate use of red pepper; and a fever and ague, which is particularly dangerous to foreigners. In these disorders there is no remedy whatever known or used but amulets, consisting of certain sentences, transcribed from the Koran, on a slip of paper, which the patient wears about his neck, and in bad cases is made to swallow. Phlebotomy is unknown; but blood is occasionally drawn by means of cupping. As to surgery, I heard there were people at Mourzouk who had sufficient ability to cure a simple fracture. The houses of the Fezzans are miserably built; they are constructed with stones or bricks made of a calcareous earth mixed with clay, and dried in the sun. No other tools are used in the building but the hands of the labourer. When the walls are completely raised, the friends of the proprietor assemble, and assist him to incrust and cover them with a mortar made with a white calcareous earth. This work too is done only by the hand. The houses are all extremely low, and the light enters by the door only.