The beginning of our march, after we had watered our animals and filled our water-skins, was rather inauspicious, our companions missing their way and with their bugles calling me and my people, who were pursuing the right track, far to the south, till, after endeavouring in vain to make our way through an impervious thicket, and after a considerable loss of time, anything but agreeable at the beginning of a desperate march of nearly thirty hours, we at length with the assistance of a Púllo shepherd regained the right track. We then pursued our march, travelling without any halt the whole day and the whole night through the dense forest, leaving the pond called tebki-n-Gúndumi at some distance on our left, and not meeting with any signs of cultivation till a quarter before eleven the next morning, when, wearied in the extreme and scarcely able to keep up, we were met by some horsemen, who had been sent out from the camp at Gáwasú to meet us, provided with water-skins in order to bring up the stragglers who had lagged behind from fatigue and thirst. And there were many who needed their assistance—one woman had even succumbed to exhaustion in the course of the night; for such a forced march is the more fatiguing and exhausting as the dangers from a lurking enemy make the greatest possible silence and quiet indispensable, instead of the spirits being kept up with cheerful songs as is usually the case. But having once reached the cultivated grounds, after a march of two miles and a half more we arrived at the first gáwasú trees which surround the village which is named after them, “Gáwasú.” In the fields or “kárkará” adjoining this village, ʿAlíyu the emír el Múmenín had taken up his camping-ground, and was preparing himself for setting out upon an expedition against the Góber people.