I had exhausted my means entirely, having been obliged to purchase at high prices, for credit, even the very small supply of presents which I was able to take with me. I had only two very indifferent servants, Mohammed ben Habíb and Mohammed ben Áhmed, both young lads from Fezzán, as limited in their intelligence as they were conceited in their pretensions as Moslemín, and not possessing the least knowledge of the country which we were about to visit. The only animals I had for my conveyance were a horse and a she-camel. Hence I did not set out with that spirit of confidence which ensures success; but, having determined to return to Europe if new supplies did not very soon arrive, I resolved to make a last desperate attempt to accomplish something before I finally left the country. Mr. Overweg accompanied me as far as Ngórnu, where we took up our quarters with my friend the kashélla Kótokó. Here, in my present destitute condition, I was greatly delighted at receiving, by private message from the vizier, a small parcel of coffee, and from the mʿallem Mohammed, a loaf of sugar. Such tokens of disinterested friendship are very gratifying to the traveller in a foreign land. [Sidenote: Friday, March 5th.] At the beginning of the cotton-plantation I took leave of my European companion. He was to make an excursion, accompanied by Kótokó, along the shores of the lake towards Máduwári—the very place where, in the course of a few months, he was destined to succumb. I had received from the mestréma a trooper as escort; but he was not the kind of man I should have liked. If phrenologists had taken his features as the general type of the Negro race, they would have felt themselves authorized in assigning to them a more intimate affinity with monkeys than with men; and his cheerless but self-conceited disposition was in perfect harmony with his exterior. The waters of the lagoon had already considerably decreased, laying bare fine fresh pasture-grounds, on which numerous herds of cattle were grazing, while small pools of stagnant water, left behind by the retiring inundation, afforded some relief to the monotony of the plain. A great deal of cotton is cultivated on these fertile grounds, and an immense deal more might be cultivated. The people were busy in all directions in the labours of the field, while, on those grounds which were not cultivated, the luxuriant weed of the _Asclepias_ was re- assuming its ordinary domain. Scarcely a single tree was to be seen; and only as we proceeded onwards a few specimens gradually appeared.