During all this time I prosecuted inquiries with regard to several subjects connected with the geography and ethnography of this quarter of the world. I received several visits from Emgédesi tradesmen, many of whom are established in the northern provinces of Háusa, chiefly in Kátsena and Tasáwa, where living is infinitely cheaper than in Ágades. All these I found to be intelligent men, having been brought up in the centre of intercourse between a variety of tribes and nations of the most different organization, and, through the web of routes which join here, receiving information of distant regions. Several of them had even made the Pilgrimage, and thus come in contact with the relatively high state of civilization in Egypt and near the coast; and I shall not easily forget the enlightened view which the mʿallem Háj Mohammed ʿOmár, who visited me several times, took of Islámism and Christianity. The last day of my stay in Ágades, he reverted to the subject of religion, and asked me, in a manner fully expressive of his astonishment, how it came to pass that the Christians and Moslemín were so fiercely opposed to one another, although their creeds, in essential principles, approximated so closely. To this I replied by saying that I thought the reason was that the great majority both of Christians and Moslemín paid less regard to the dogmas of their creeds than to external matters, which have very little or no reference to religion itself. I also tried to explain to him, that in the time of Mohammed Christianity had entirely lost that purity which was its original character, and that it had been mixed up with many idolatrous elements, from which it was not entirely disengaged till a few centuries ago, while the Mohammedans had scarcely any acquaintance with Christians except those of the old sects of the Jacobites and Nestorians. Mutually pleased with our conversation, we parted from each other with regret. In the afternoon I was agreeably surprised by the arrival of the Tinýlkum Ibrahim, for the purpose of supplying his brother’s house with what was wanted; and being determined to make only one day’s stay in the town, he had learned with pleasure that we were about to return by way of Áfasás, the village whither he himself was going. I myself had cherished this hope, as all the people had represented that place as one of the largest in the country, and as pleasantly situated. Hámma had promised to take me this way on our return to Tintéllust; but having stayed so much longer in the town than he had intended, and being afraid of arriving too late for the salt-caravan of the Kél-owí on their way to Bilma, which he was to supply with provisions, he changed his plan, and determined to return by the shortest road. Meanwhile he informed me that the old chief would certainly not go with us to Zínder till the salt- caravan had returned from Bilma.