The course of my material existence went on very uniformly, with only slight variations. My daily food, when I was in the town, consisted of some milk and bread in the morning, a little kuskus, which the Sheikh used to send, about two in the afternoon, and a dish of negro millet, containing a little meat, or seasoned with the sauce of the kobéwa, or _Cucurbita Melopepo_, after sunset. The meat of Timbúktu, at least during the cold season, agreed with me infinitely better than that of any other part of Negroland; but this was not the case with the _Melopepo_, although it is an excellent and palatable vegetable. In the beginning of my stay I had consumed a great many young pigeons, which form a favourite dainty in this city. They are sold at the almost incredibly cheap rate of ten shells each, or at the rate of three hundred for a dollar; but the poor little things were used for culinary purposes so soon after breaking the shell as to be almost tasteless. A very rare dainty was formed by an ostrich egg, which was one day brought to me. This article is more easily to be obtained in the desert than in the towns, and such strong food, moreover, is not well adapted to the stomach of a resident. The Sheikh used also to send me a dish late at night, sometimes long after midnight; but, on account of the late hour, I never touched it, and left it to my servants. It had been arranged that we should make another excursion to Kábara, but our visit was put off from day to day, although I was extremely anxious to witness the features of the country, in the present high level of the river, at the place where I had first landed on my arrival. Thus I was reduced, for entertainment, to my intercourse with the Sheikh, his kinsfolk, and followers; and as religious topics were always brought forward more prominently by my enemies, but especially in the learned letters which the emír of Hamda-Alláhi sent in reply to the Sheikh[1], my conversation with the former now began to turn more and more upon religious subjects, such as the return of the Messiah, and on the meaning of the name “Paraclete” given in the New Testament to the Holy Spirit, who was to descend upon the apostles, but which by the Mohammedans in more recent times is applied to Mohammed, whose coming, they say, is predicted in this instance by the Holy Book of the Christians.