FIRST RESIDENCE IN THE DESERT. — POLITICAL COMBINATIONS. — GREAT MOSQUE. — GROUND-PLAN OF THE TOWN. [Sidenote: October 11th.] This was an important moment for myself, as, with the exception of an occasional visit to the Sheikh, who lived only a few yards across the street, and an almost daily promenade on my terrace, I had not moved about since my arrival. With a deep consciousness of the critical position in which I was placed, I followed my protector, who, mounted on his favourite white mare, led the way through the streets of the town, along which the assembled natives were thronging in order to get a glance at me. Leaving the high mounds of rubbish which constitute the groundwork of the northern part of the town on our left, and pursuing a north-north-easterly direction over a sandy tract covered with stunted bushes, and making only a short halt near a well five miles from the town, for the purpose of watering our horses, after a march of two miles more we reached the camp, which could easily be recognised at a great distance by two large white cotton tents, whose size and situation made them conspicuous above some smaller leathern dwellings. It was just about sunset; and the open country with its rich mimosas, and with the camp on the rising ground, the white sandy soil of which was illumined by the last rays of the setting sun, presented an interesting spectacle. The younger inhabitants of the camp, including Bábá Ahmed and ʿAbidín, two favourite boys of the Sheikh, one five, the other four years of age, came out to meet us; and I soon afterwards found myself lodged in an indigenous tent of camel’s hair, which was pitched at the foot of the hill, belonging to Mohammed el Khalíl, a relative of the Sheikh, who had come from his native home in Tíris, on the shores of the Atlantic, in order to share his uncle’s blessing. In this encampment we passed several days in the most quiet and retired manner, when my friend revealed to me his course of action. It was his intention, he said, to bring the old chief Galaijo, from the place of his exile in Champagóre, back to this part of Negroland, which he had formerly ruled, and to reinstate him, by the aid of the Tawárek, in the government of Másina with the residence Hamda-Alláhi, of which he was to deprive the family of Lebbo. But even if it was true, as he said, that the Fúlbe themselves, as well those settled between Fermágha and Gúndam, as those inhabiting the provinces of Dalla, Dwenza, and Gilgóji, were opposed to the government of Lebbo, such a project appeared to me to require a greater share of perseverance and determination than, from all that I had seen, I could believe my noble friend possessed. However, he entertained no doubt at that time that Alkúttabu, the great chief of the Tawárek himself, would come to his aid without delay and conduct me, under his powerful protection, safely along the banks of the Niger.