I have remarked above that on the day I started for Ágades the old chief made a present of a bullock to the other members of the mission; but in this present I myself did not participate, and I had not yet received anything from him. Perhaps he was sensible of this, and wanted to give me likewise a proof of his royal generosity; but I am afraid he was at the same time actuated by feelings of a very different nature. He had several times praised my Turkish jacket, and I had consoled him with a razor or some other trifle; he had avowedly coveted my warm black bernús, and had effected, by his frank intimations, nothing more than to make me draw my warm clothing closer round my body. In order to bear the fatigue of the journey more easily, he had long ago exchanged the little narrow kígi or méheri-saddle for the broad pack-saddle, with a load of salt, as a secure seat. He was one of the foremost in his string, while I, mounted upon my Bu- Séfi (who, since the loss of my méheri, had once more become my favourite saddle-horse), was riding outside the caravan, separated from him by several strings of camels. He called me by name; and on my answering his call, he invited me to come to him: to do this I had to ride round all the strings. At length I reached him. He began to complain of the intense cold, from which he was suffering so acutely, while I seemed to be so comfortable in my warm clothes; then he asked if the ostrich-eggs of yesterday evening had pleased us, whereupon I told him that his people had cheered us greatly by contributing, with their gift, to enable us to celebrate our chief festival. He then put his hand into his knapsack, and drawing forth a little cheese, and lifting it high up, so that all his people might see it, he presented the princely gift to me, with a gracious and condescending air, as a “mágani-n-dári” (a remedy against the cold), words which I, indeed, was not sure whether they were not meant ironically, as an intimation that I had withheld from him the real mágani-n-dári, my black bernús. We were gladdened when, about noon, the plain became clothed with brushwood, and, after a while also with bú-rékkeba. Large troops of ostriches were seen,—once a whole family, the parents, with several young ones of various ages, all running in single file one after the other. We encamped at half-past three in the afternoon, on a spot tolerably free from karéngia, where we observed a great many holes of the fox, the fének, or ñauñáwa (_Megalotis famelicus_), particularly in the neighbourhood of ant-hills. There were also the larger holes of the earth-hog (_Orycteropus Æthiopicus_), an animal which never leaves its hole in the daytime, and is rarely seen even by the natives. The holes, which are from fourteen to sixteen inches in diameter, and descend gradually, are generally made with great accuracy.