_4th._--To-day is half a feast, and full-grown men and aged men are amusing themselves with swinging, like so many boys. A dead aoudad was brought in from The Sahara, which the Touaricks had killed. These Touaricks are also bearers of a letter, written at Timbuctoo, which has come the round-about way of Soudan, announcing that the Sultan of Timbuctoo is dead. Sidi Mokhtar, a marabout, is appointed Governor of Timbuctoo by the new Sultan. The Sultan himself, after visiting Timbuctoo and making this appointment, retired to Jinnee, his royal residence. Sheikh El-Mokhtar has a good reputation; he is now occupied reorganizing his government. No other news. Met in the streets one of the Touaricks who came yesterday with fifteen camel-loads of senna. Asked him if Touaricks killed Christians. Surprised at this abrupt question, he asked, "_Why?_" I added, "If you are a good fellow I will go with you to Ghat." Pleased at this confidence, he came home with me and took some coffee. A camel-load of senna now sells for seventeen mahboubs. He asked me what the Christians did with the senna, and would not believe it was all used for physic. Said Christians were not numerous enough to drink all they bought. There is a wady near Ghat covered with senna, during rain, but the greater portion of senna is brought from Aheer. An instance of the way in which the Arabic language is used, and which makes some people think there are different dialects in this language, may be given in the terms denoting _Garden_. For garden, the Touaricks and people of Touat use ‮جنّة‬, a word which frequently occurs in the Koran, conveying the highest and purest idea of garden, and which we usually translate "_paradise_." In Ghadamsee and Touarghee a corruption of this pure Arabic word is used for heaven, ‮اجّن‬. The Tripoline and Tunisian Moors use the term ‮سانية‬, and the people here ‮قابة‬, for garden, but which is, rather, kitchen-garden. Now, all these words are good Arabic, and may be used indifferently, at least the two latter. In the New Testament translation, the Persian ‮بستان‬ is used, which I imagine is the Eastern term for garden generally, in opposition to the western ‮سانية‬. _The Garden_ in North Africa is very different from our ideas of a garden. Corn-fields, overshadowed with the palm, the olive, and a few other fruit-trees, is the species of plantation to which the term is usually applied. Certainly a few flowers are sometimes cultivated in these gardens of Africa, but this is the exception to the usage.