simple luxuries of the market, but had recourse to my common medicine of tamarind water. There was some little danger here, not so much from a foreign foe as from our proximity to a considerable hamlet of Tawárek of the tribe of the Itísan, who have settlements in all these towns of Zánfara. While endeavouring to recruit myself by rest and simple diet, I received a visit from an intelligent and well-behaved young fáki, Mʿallem Dádi, who belonged to the suite of the ghaladíma, and whose company was always agreeable to me. He informed me that the Zánfaráwa and the Góberáwa had regarded each other with violent hatred from ancient times,—Babári, the founder of Kaláwa, or Alkaláwa, the former capital of Góber, having based the strength and wellbeing of his own country on the destruction of the old capital of Zánfara, ninety-seven years previously. Hence the people of Zánfara embarked heart and soul in the religious and political rising of the sheikh ʿOthmán against his liege lord the ruler of Góber. I learned also that the same amount of tribute, which I have before mentioned as carried on this occasion by the messengers of Záriya to the emír el Múmenín, was paid almost every second month, while from Kátsena it was very difficult to obtain a regular tribute, the governor of that town generally not paying more than 400,000 kurdí and forty articles, such as bernúses, kaftans, &c., annually. It was only an exceptional case, arising from the exertions of the ghaladíma as I was told, that he had sent, this year, 800,000 shells, besides a horse of Tárki breed, of the nominal value of 700,000 kurdí. [Illustration] [Sidenote: Wednesday, March 30th.] Allowing my camels to pursue the direct road, I myself took a rather roundabout way, in order to get a sight of the tebki from which the town is supplied; and I was really astonished at the considerable expanse of clear water which it exhibited at this time of the year (shortly before the setting in of the rainy season), when water in the whole of Negroland becomes very scanty. The ground consisted of fine vegetable soil, while the cultivation along the path was scarcely interrupted; and in passing a hamlet we saw the inhabitants making the first preparations for the labours of the field. Cotton was also cultivated to a considerable extent. About a mile and a half further on, at the village of Sungúruré, which is surrounded with a strong keffi, I observed the first rúdu, a sort of light hut consisting of nothing but a thatched roof raised upon four poles from eight to ten feet in height, and affording a safe retreat to the inhabitants, during their night’s rest, against the swarms of mosquitoes which infest the whole region along the swampy creeks of the Niger, the people entering these elevated bedrooms from below, and shutting the entrance behind them, as represented in the accompanying woodcut.