But to return to my diary, the visits paid me by the other people of Tawát became less frequent, as I had no coffee to treat them with; but I was rather glad of this circumstance, as my time was too short for labouring in that wide field of new information which opened before me, and it was necessary to confine myself at present to narrower limits. In this respect I was extremely fortunate in having obeyed my impulse to visit this place, which, however desolate it may appear to the traveller who first enters it, is still the centre of a large circle of commercial intercourse, while Tintéllust is nothing but a small village, important merely from the character of the chief who resides in it, and where even those people who know a little about the country are afraid to communicate that very little. I would advise any traveller, who should hereafter visit this country, to make a long stay in this place, if he can manage to do so in comfort; for I am sure that there still remains to be collected in Ágades a store of the most valuable and interesting information. In the afternoon of the 15th of October (the eve of the great holiday), ten chiefs of the Kél-gerés, on horseback, entered the town; and towards evening news was brought that Astáfidet, the chief of the Kél-owí residing in Ásodi, was not far off, and would make his solemn entry early in the morning. My companions therefore were extremely busy in getting ready and cleaning their holiday dress, or “yadó;” and Hamma could not procure tassels enough to adorn his high red cap, in order to give to his short figure a little more height. Poor fellow! he was really a good man, and one of the best of the Kél-owí; and the news of his being killed, in the sanguinary battle which was fought between his tribe and the Kél-geres in 1854, grieved me not a little. In the evening there was singing and dancing (“wargi” and “wása”) all over the town, and all the people were merry except the followers of Mákita or Ímkiten, “the Pretender;” and the sultan ʿAbd el Káder was obliged to imprison three chiefs of the Itísan, who had come to urge Mákita’s claims. It was on this occasion that I learnt that the mighty king of Ágades had not only a common prison, “gida-n-damré,” wherein he might confine the most haughty chiefs, but that he even exercised over them the power of life and death, and that he dispensed the favours of a terrible dungeon bristling with swords and spears standing upright, upon which he was authorized to throw any distinguished malefactor. This latter statement, of the truth of which I had some doubt, was afterwards confirmed to me by the old chief Ánnur. In any case, however, such a cruel punishment cannot but be extremely rare. [Sidenote: Wednesday, October 16th.]