The rains, which at first had set in with considerable violence, had afterwards almost ceased, so that the herbage on the open uncultivated grounds in the town became quite withered, and many of the people, who upon the first appearance of rain had been induced to trust their seeds to the soil, were sadly disappointed; and I have already had occasion to relate that the natives, including their chief, attributed this state of the weather to my malignant influence. However, I was delighted when I sometimes made a little excursion on horseback in the environs of the capital, to see that the open country was less dry than the inside of the town, although even there as yet little cultivation was to be seen. It seemed very remarkable to me that here, as well as in the other parts of the country, especially Bákadá, the corn was generally cultivated in deep furrows and ridges or “derába,” a mode of tillage which I had not observed in any other country of Negroland through which I had travelled. The people, however, were very suspicious whenever I mounted on horseback; and the first time they saw me galloping off, they thought I was going to make my escape, and were therefore all on the look-out. All this time the sultan or “bánga” was absent, and the false news which was repeatedly told of his whereabouts kept up a continual excitement. When I first arrived in the country, he had gone a considerable distance towards the south-east, and was besieging a place called Gógomi, which was strongly fortified by nature, and made a long resistance, so that the besieging army lost a great many of their best men, and among them an Arab sheríf who had joined the expedition. But at length the place was taken, and the courtiers prevailed upon the prince to retrace his steps homewards, as they were suffering a great deal from famine; so much so that the greatest part of the army were obliged to live upon the fruit of the deléb-palm (_Borassus flabelliformis?_), which seems to be the predominant tree in many of the southern provinces of Bagírmi. [Sidenote: July 3rd.] After false reports of the sultan’s approach had been spread repeatedly, he at length really arrived. Of course, the excitement of the whole population was very great, almost all the fighting men having been absent from home for more than six months.