REAL START. — SMALL PARTY. At length on the 4th of May, I left the town and encamped outside, close in front of the gate. The Sheikh had also given me another camel, and a young and rather weak horse, which did not seem very fit for such a journey, and which in the sequel proved rather a burden than otherwise to me. In this spot I remained some days, waiting for my fellow- traveller Kólo, who was still detained in the town, so that I did not take leave of the Sheikh until the 9th of the month, when he received me with great kindness, but was by no means backward in begging for several articles to be sent to him, especially a small cannon, which was rather out of comparison with the poor present which he had bestowed upon myself. However, he promised me that I should still receive another camel from him, of which I stood greatly in need, although I had made up for one which was lost during my stay before the gate of the town, through the carelessness of Ábbega, by buying a fresh camel at the last moment of my departure. It was for this purpose that I took the sum of thirty dollars from the 1000 dollars brought by the caravan, and which I was anxious to leave behind for the use of Mr. Vogel. Altogether I was extremely unfortunate with my camels, and lost a third one before I had proceeded many miles from the town, so that I was obliged to throw away several things with which my people had overladen my animals. Our move from Dáwerghú in the afternoon of the 10th was very inauspicious; and while a heavy thunder-storm was raging, enveloping everything in impenetrable darkness, only occasionally illumined by the flashes of lightning, I lost my people, and had great difficulty in joining them again. Having then moved on by very short marches as far as Nghurútuwa, through a finely wooded valley called Hénderi Gálliram, we pitched our tents on the 14th of May near the town of Yó, where, to my utmost disappointment, we had to stay the five following days, during which the interesting character of the komádugu, which at present did not contain a drop of water, with its border of vegetation, afforded me but insufficient entertainment. It would, however, have been curious for any European, who had adhered to the theory of the great eastern branch of the Niger flowing along this bed from the Tsád, to see us encamped in the dry bottom of this valley. At all events, oppressed as I had been all the time by the apprehension that something might still occur to frustrate my departure, I deemed it one of the happiest moments of my life, when in the afternoon of Saturday the 19th, we at length left our station at this northern frontier of Bórnu, in the present reduced state of that kingdom; and I turned my back with great satisfaction upon these countries where I had spent full five years in incessant toil and exertion. On retracing my steps northwards, I was filled with the hope