In going as well as in returning, the order of the procession was as follows. In front of all, accompanied by the musicians, rode the sultan on a very handsome horse of Tawáti breed[151], wearing, over his fine Sudán robe of coloured cotton and silk, the blue bernus I had presented to him, and wearing on his side a handsome cimetar with gold handle. Next to him rode the two sáraki-n-turáwa,—Bóro, the ex-serki on his left, and Ashu, who held the office at the time, on his right,—followed by the “fádawa-n-serki,” after whom came the chiefs of the Itísan and Kél-gerés, all on horseback, in full dress and armour, with their swords, daggers, long spears, and immense shields. Then came the longer train of the Kél-owí, mostly on mehára, or swift camels, with Sultan Astáfidet at their head; and last of all followed the people of the town, a few on horseback, but most of them on foot, and armed with swords and spears, and several with bows and arrows. The people were all dressed in their greatest finery; and it would have formed a good subject for an artist. It recalled the martial processions of the middle ages—the more so as the high caps of the Tawárek[152], surrounded by a profusion of tassels on every side, together with the black “tesílgemist” or lithám, which covers the whole face, leaving nothing but the eyes visible, and the shawls wound over this and round the cap combine to imitate the shape of the helmet, while the black and coloured tobes (over which on such occasions the principal people wear a red bernus thrown across their shoulders) represent very well the heavier dress of the knights of yore. I will only add, that the fact of the sultan wearing on so important and solemn an occasion a robe which had been presented to him by a stranger and a Christian, had a powerful influence on the tribes collected here, and spread a beneficial report far westward over the desert.