I therefore applied myself entirely for a few days to the study of the several routes which, with the assistance of ʿAbdalla, I had been able to collect from different people, and which will be given in the Appendix, and to the language of Ágades. For though I had left all my books behind at Tintéllust, except that volume of “Prichard’s Researches” which treats of Africa, I had convinced myself, from the specimens which he gives of the language of Timbúktu, that the statement of my friends from Tawát with regard to the identity of the languages of the two places was quite correct,—only with this qualification, that here this language had been greatly influenced by intercourse with the Berbers, from whom sundry words were borrowed, while the Arabic seemed to have had little influence beyond supplanting the numerals from four upwards. I was also most agreeably surprised and gratified to find this identity confirmed by the fact that the people of Ágades give the Tawárek in general the name under which that tribe of them which lives near Timbúktu and along the Niger had become known to Mungo Park in those quarters where the language of Timbúktu is spoken. This was indeed very satisfactory, as the native name of that powerful tribe is entirely different; for the Surka, as they are called by Mungo Park, are the same as the Awelímmiden, of whom I had already heard so much in Asben (the inhabitants of which country seemed to regard them with much dread), and with whom I was afterwards to enter into the most intimate relations. While residing in Ágades, I was not yet aware of all the points of information which I have been able to collect in the course of my travels; and I was at a loss to account for the identity of language in places so widely separated from each other by immense tracts of desert, and by countries which seemed to have been occupied by different races. But while endeavouring, in the further course of my journey, to discover as far as possible the history of the nations with whom I had to deal, I found the clue for explaining this apparently-marvellous phenomenon, and shall lay it before my readers in the following chapter. To the Tawáti ʿAbd-alla I was indebted for information on a variety of interesting matters, which I found afterwards confirmed in every respect. In a few points his statements were subject to correction, and still more to improvement; but in no single case did I find that he had deviated from the truth. I state this deliberately, in order to show that care must be taken to distinguish between information collected systematically by a native enjoying the entire confidence of his informant, and who, from his knowledge of the language and the subject about which he inquires, is able to control his informant’s statements, and that which is picked up incidentally by one who scarcely knows what he asks.