[Footnote 124: This circumstance explains a curious fact in Mr. Koelle’s Polyglotta Africana, a work of the greatest merit, but in which, on account of the immense ground over which it extends, some errors must be expected. One of the most unfortunate examples in this respect are his specimens of a language called Kándín (xii. C.). Now the name Kándín is quite inadmissible in ethnography, being a name given to the Imóshagh or Tawárek only by the Kanúri people, to say nothing of the very odd geographical blunder involved in the expression “Absen, a town of Egades.” But the specimens of the language which Mr. Koelle gives under this head are a curious mixture of Targíye, Háusa, and even some Kanúri terms; and his informant, Abárshi (a very common name in Ásben), was most probably a slave by origin, at least not a free man, even before he was enslaved by the Kanúri. But these specimens are not uninteresting, giving a fair idea of the state of things in the country, although any respectable native would be ashamed to mix Háusa and Berber terms in this way; and moreover the latter as given here are mostly corrupted from the very beginning, for “one” is not díyen, but íyen, and the _d_ is only added in composition, as meráw d’íyen, meráw d’esín—“eleven,” “twelve,” &c.] [Footnote 125: _Im_, or _em_, in composition is almost identical with _kél_, meaning “the people of,” “the inhabitants of.”] [Footnote 126: This name clearly shows that the final consonant of the name of the great town is not distinctly a ز (z), though the Arabs generally write it so. In fact, as I shall have to state further on, it was originally _sh_. From Ém-egédesen is formed Ém-egedesíye, “the language of the people of Ágades.”] [Footnote 127: Mehárebi—محَاربي—though not to be found in our dictionaries, is a very common word with the Mohammedans all over Central Africa, and is regularly formed from “hareb,” حرب, quite in the same way as meháres, the common name given in Morocco to a guard or escort, from “hares.” The emír Hámedu of Hamd-Alláhi did me the honour to call me by this name, on account of the resistance I made to his attempt to seize me and my property during my stay in Timbúktu; and I do not doubt that the following passage in one of the angry and learned letters which he wrote to my protector the sheikh El Bakáy, will have some interest for such of my readers as understand Arabic:— ولم نفطز بذلك محاربتك بل الذي حاربناه النصرانى الكافر الذي حارب الله ورسوله وهو حرب ورثناه من الاباء والاجداد ادى هلم جرا وحضنا عليه ربّنا ووعدنا فيه اجرا ودخرا But his sacrilegious wishes were not fulfilled.]