Leaving the pleasant valley of Gébi by a small opening bordered with large blocks of granite, while peaks of considerable elevation were seen towering over the nearer cliffs, we entered another large valley called Tághajít[96], but not quite so rich in vegetation, and encamped here on an open space a little after noon. The valley is important as being the first in the frontier-region of Aïr or Asben where there is a fixed settlement—a small village of leathern tents, inhabited by people of the tribe of Fade-ang, who preserve a certain independence of the Kél-owí, while they acknowledge the supremacy of the sultan of Ágades, a state of things of which I shall have occasion to say more in another place. [Footnote 88: The two names Aséttere and Tajétterat are apparently derived from the same root.] [Footnote 89: I give here a list of the stations of their route, from Eláwen:— Em-eríwuang, with water, one day; Inar-ámas, one long day; Tibállaghén, with water when there has been much rain, one day; Terhén, with water, one day; Tin-afárfa, mountain-range with sand, one day; Takíset, a valley between high mountains, three days, two of them over very sandy ground; Arikím, with water at all times; Iséti, a valley, two days; Tamiswát, valley with water, one day; Morér, high mountains, two days; Falésselez, one day, over a gravelly Hammáda; Tamba- or Shamba-késa, a shallow valley rich in herbage (see p. 262.), one day; Tirárien, one day; Araer, hammáda with shallow valleys, one day; Táfak, one day; Arókam, water, one day; Tádomat, valley, one day; Kátelet, one day; Aísala, or Isala, one day.] [Footnote 90: I read it “énfadmaschbel.”] [Footnote 91: This is a Háusa word, from “rába” (to divide); and I shall have to notice, in the course of my proceedings, several localities so designated on various routes.] [Footnote 92: This name is evidently identical with the name given to the Berber alphabet, which is called tefínaghen; but the coincidence will cease to surprise when I remark that both words mean nothing but signs, tokens, a name which may be given as well to letters as to a district remarkable for the position of some stones or ridges. The Tawárek, as I shall have occasion to mention in another part of my narrative, call all sorts of writing not written in signs, but with letters, tefínaghen. The learned among the Tademékket and Awelímmiden were greatly surprised, when going attentively over my English books, to find that it was all tefínaghen—“tefínagh rurret.”] [Footnote 93: The form Aisou, in Mr. Richardson’s Journal, is only a clerical error.] [Footnote 94: Mr. Richardson calls it Takeesat.]