After the rainy season the character presented by this forest must be very different, and a little further on, evident signs of former cultivation began to be visible, even of sesamum (“márrashi,” as the Kanúri, “kárru,” as the Bagírmi people call it), as was evident from the deep furrows which intersected the ground. The inhabitants of two or three small hamlets dragged on a miserable existence even during the drought which at present prevailed; and we met a large body of women and children, who preferred fetching every night and morning their supply of this most essential element from a distance of several miles rather than desert their native village. Having passed another hamlet, likewise destitute of water, and left several villages at a greater distance surrounded by a tract of cultivated ground, we at length reached the longed-for El Dorado where water was to be found; and, as may be presumed, there was a great bustle round the well, which had to supply the whole thirsty neighbourhood. Numbers of people, camels, and asses were thronging around, longing for the moment when they might come in for their share; and as the well was ten fathoms deep, a considerable time would necessarily elapse before they were all supplied. Being saluted in a friendly way by the people, I pitched my tent in the shade of a large chédia or caoutchouc-tree, which, however, was very scanty, as the young leaves had not come out, and afforded very little relief from the heat of the sun. Here it was for the first time that I tasted a dish of sesamum, which was prepared in the same manner as millet, in the form of a large hasty pudding, but, being insufficiently seasoned by the common African sauce of the leaves of the kúka or monkey-bread tree, did not appear to me to be a very dainty dish. The village, the name of which is Mókorí, had a comfortable appearance; and the pounding of indigo in the dyeing-pits went on without interruption, even during the heat of the day. Some Fúlbe or Felláta shepherds live in the neighbourhood; and I was fortunate enough to barter a little butter for glass beads, as well as a small supply of rice—that is to say, wild rice, for rice is not cultivated here, but only gathered in the jungles from what the elephant and rhinoceros have left. Altogether I might have been very comfortable, if my uncertain situation in the country had not caused me some anxiety.