It was a serious undertaking to enter into direct negotiation with these Tawárek chiefs, the absolute masters of several of the most important routes to Central Africa.[83] It required great skill, entire confidence, and no inconsiderable amount of means, of which we were extremely deficient. To this vexation let there be added the petulant and indiscreet behaviour of our servants, who were exasperated by the sufferings of the Rámadhán during the hottest season of the year, and were too well aware of the insufficiency of our means to carry out the objects of our mission; and the reader will easily understand that we were extremely glad when, after repeated delays, we were at length able to leave this place in the pursuance of our journey. [Footnote 63: Makrizi, Hamaker Specim. Categ. p. 206. بلد فزان واهلها بربر. El Bekri, p. 455., already mentions Benu-Khaldín, besides the Fezzánah, as inhabitants of some places. On the same page this diligent author says expressly that the town of Zawíla was on the border of Negroland. We shall see, in the second volume, that all this country constituted part of the Empire of Kánem; indeed, from what El Bekri says, p. 457., it appears that even within twenty years after the great and unfortunate immigration of the Arab tribes into Barbary, two tribes, the Hadrámis and the Sehámis, had taken possession of Wadán. But we shall see that the Negroes regained this place at a later period.] [Footnote 64: Edrisi, ed. Jaubert, vol. i. p. 113. Edrísi deserves attention when he says that the Negroes called Tessáwa “Little Jerma;” that is to say, they attached to it a celebrated name, as if it were another capital of the country.] [Footnote 65: Procop. de Ædificiis, vi. 4.; Joann. Abb. Chronic. p. 13. (respecting the Mauri pacati, but especially the important tribe of the Lewátah); Abu’l Hassan, Annales Regg. Maur., ed. Tornberg, pp. 7. 15. 83. (respecting the Western Berbers); El Bekri, Notices et Extraits, &c., vol. xii. p. 484.; Ebn Khaldún, tom. i. p. 209., le Baron de Slane, and _passim_.] [Footnote 66: A few authors make this momentous event, which plunged North Africa into a series of misfortunes, happen a few years later, under El Yezúri.—Leo Africanus, ed. Venezia, 1837, l. i. c. 21.: “Ma quando la loro (degli Arabi) generazione entrò nell’ Africa, allora con guerra scacciò di là i Numidi; e ella si rimase ad abitar ne’ diserti vicini ai paesi de’ datteri, e i Numidi andarono a far le loro abitazioni ne’ diserti che sono propinqui alla Terranegra.”]