On returning from my walk to our encampment, I found a great number of the inhabitants of the place assembled, and, after they had paid their compliments to the Sheikh, anxiously looking out for the stranger in order to obtain his blessing also. But I did not find them sufficiently interesting to have much intercourse with them, for they have very little of that noble independent carriage which distinguishes, in such an eminent degree, their south-eastern countrymen; and their stature, as well as their features, seemed to indicate plainly a very strong intermixture with Mósi slaves. It is not improbable, that the whole indigenous population of this northern bank of the Niger originally belonged to the race of the Tombo. Most of these people wore closely fitting white shirts and trowsers, both made of a broad kind of cotton strip, or tári, of very coarse texture, while their head is generally encircled with a very rugged and poor turban, if we may so call it, of the same material; only a few of them being dressed in a more decent style. They had a good deal of butter, but dared not sell it, through fear of the Tawárek. I was not a little surprised at the large species of geese which they were breeding. [Sidenote: Tuesday, May 23rd.] We started in the cool of the morning, keeping close to the border of the swampy creek, which gradually becomes narrower, while the principal trunk of the river approaches. After a march of about a mile and a half, we receded a little into the desert, which exhibited an immense number of footprints of the giraffe, generally three or four together. Here the vegetation was rather scanty, the ground in general being covered with nothing but low bushes; but, after we had approached a small ridge of sandy downs, we crossed a hollow, which, being the dried up ground of a pond, or dhaye, was surrounded with dúm-bush and tobacco-grounds. We had been joined some time previously by a chief of the Kél-antsár, who invited us to spend the hot hours of the day with him. We therefore halted at an early hour by the side of his encampment, which was situated on a promontory close beyond the rich vale whence the district was called “eráshar;” Kírtebe and Tárashít we had left on one side. The people slaughtered a whole ox, and sent us a great many dishes of rice and sour milk. The whole tribe of the Kél-antsár is rather numerous, numbering upwards of 1000 full-grown men, but they are scattered over a wide extent of country, reaching from Gógó to Rás el má, and even into the interior of Tagánet, the district between Timbúktu and Ázawád. We had intended to pitch our tent here, but we found the ground so extremely dry and hard that it would not hold the pegs.