While encamped here, I bought from Hamma a black Sudán tobe, which, worn over another very large white tobe or shirt, and covered with a white bernús, gave me an appearance more suited to the country, while the stains of indigo soon made my complexion a few shades darker. This exterior accommodation to the custom of the natives, my friend Hámma represented as essential for securing the success of my undertaking; and it had, besides, the advantage that it gave rise to the rumour that the sultan of Ágades himself had presented me with this dress. At length, when the sun was almost down, and when it was known that the Kél-gerés and Itísan (who had come to Ágades in very great numbers, in order to proceed on their journey to Bílma after the investiture of the new sultan) had retreated to their encampments at some distance from the town, we started, and were soon met by several people, who came to pay their compliments to my companions. On entering the town, we passed through a half-deserted quarter and at length reached the house of Ánnur, where we were to take up our abode. But arriving in a new place at night is never very pleasant, and must be still less so where there are no lamps; it therefore took us some time to make ourselves tolerably comfortable. But I was fortunate in receiving hospitable treatment from our travelling companion ʿAbd el Káder, who being lodged in a chamber close to mine, sent me a well-prepared dish of kuskusu, made of Indian corn. I could not relish the rice sent by one of Ánnur’s wives, who resides here, owing to its not being seasoned with any salt, a practice to which I became afterwards more accustomed, but which rather astonished me in a country the entire trade of which consists in salt. Having spread my mat and carpet on the floor, I slept well, in the pleasing consciousness of having successfully reached this first object of my desires, and dreaming of the new sphere of inquiry on which I had entered. [Footnote 137: It is an obvious mistake to derive this name, which is written اصُطِه and اصوطِه, though the former is the more correct form and is evidently of sub-Libyan origin, from the Arabic word اسود (black).] [Footnote 138: See Gesenius, s. v. “abel;” and compare Porter, Five Years in Damascus, vol. i. p. 264.; Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, pp. 405. 485.] [Footnote 139: I have noticed in my memorandum-book also, that I saw here the first túji; but what “túji” means I am at present unable to say.] [Footnote 140: Ebn Khaldún, texte Arabe, tom. i. p. 265.; Ebn Batúta, Journal Asiatique, 1843, p. 233.] [Footnote 141: At the moment I am revising this, I am happy to state that the slave-trade is really abolished.]