A circular letter arrived to-day from Aghadez, addressed to all the Tuaricks, written by Mustapha Bey of Mourzuk, recommending them to render us all necessary protection. It is dated back two months. Probably this letter was written on account of the unfavourable intelligence which reached Mourzuk respecting us. To-morrow, please God, we start for Soudan.
12th.—Thank God! we left our encampment of Chintagawna this morning. And oh, most gracious God! give us a prosperous journey, and may we be useful to ourselves and our fellow-creatures.
We started about eleven o'clock, and went on about three hours and a-half. The day was very cool; the thermometer in the morning, at sunrise, being only three degrees above the freezing-point. We expect to see the water freeze on the high plains through which we are about to pass, before arriving at Damerghou. Our encampment is a pleasant wady, under a conical-formed rock of considerable elevation, perhaps 1500 feet. We are also in a high situation, some 1000 or more feet above the level of the sea. There is near this rock a lower one of an oblong form, its sides fluted with pillars; these columnar masses are basalt. Dr. Overweg examined the rocks, and found the outer crust a new species of rock, a sort of trachite or brachite; and the interior a sort of basalt, or volcanic substance. The large rock is also of the same formation. Dr. Barth ascended the large rock.
I am now told that I made a great mistake about the wording of the circular letter of Mustapha Bey. This letter begins by thanking the Tuaricks of Aheer for exterminating the Walad Suleiman! It then hints broadly at the necessity for the Turks in Mourzuk and the Tuaricks of Aheer being friends; and to maintain this friendship one important condition is required—that they, the Tuaricks of Aheer, shall protect all the merchants or other travellers passing through their country, and coming from Mourzuk. In the event of their committing a bad action, the Bey says he may be compelled to make reprisals; so it is quite clear the letter is written entirely on our account, and perhaps is a preliminary measure to making reprisals. Nous verrons. This letter is only addressed to the people of Aheer.
If water be the sustaining and even the generative force of vegetation in the desert, it is also the destruction of trees and herbage; for along the line of the current of the wady are seen immense numbers of dead and overthrown trees, torn from their roots by the force of the water in the rainy season. En-Noor paid me a visit this afternoon, and took a nap in my tent.
13th.—We rose early, but did not start till about nine o'clock. This was the coldest day we have yet experienced: the heavens were overcast with clouds. We came five hours; our course irregular, but always south-east; the track through wadys filled with the usual trees of the tholukh species. Yesterday were seen numbers of large butterflies, but to-day, on account of the cold, few. Flies innumerable follow the caravan. The rocks were, as yesterday, many conic-formed, and others rounded or appearing in ranges, like huge haycocks: granite, sandstone, and trachite. We have in the distance before us, a peculiarly shaped rock of considerable height, called Mari, in the midst of a range. We are encamped in the bed of an immense broad valley, and camels are feeding about in considerable numbers. The salt-caravan is very near. We are not yet in the regular caravan route, viâ Asoudee, but expect to reach it after to-morrow. En-Noor has with him as a guest the principal man of Aghadez, before mentioned. This man was once a slave, but by his address has risen thus high, as the slaves frequently do in Turkey: so widely do similar manners prevail. Many slaves in Soudan rise to the highest consequence.
The shonshona (or practice of scarifying the face or neck) prevails everywhere in Bornou, Soudan, and all this part of Africa; the Tuaricks and Fellatahs being the only people who abstain from this barbarous practice. Each device of scarifying denotes the peculiar nation of the blacks. I have now got three sketches of faces thus disfigured, and shall get as many as I can.
The Mahommedans of the coast usually teach that this way of marking the body is a sin, but nevertheless the black Muslims will not abandon the peculiarities of their nation.
14th.—Started early, but made only two hours and a-quarter, through the expansive valleys of yesterday. Here we found the salt-caravan, there being in this place abundance of room, herbage, and a large well, all necessary for such an assembly of people and beasts. On the road we put up a covey of partridges, and a splendid solitary bird, the hobara of Soudan. Footprints of the hares and of the gazelle were observed en route.
By this opportunity we have got a few dates from Bilma; but they are very poor, some of them little better than dried wood. The salt-caravan has nothing attractive. The salt is all tied up in small bales or bundles, the outward wrapper being matting or platting of strips of the leaves of the doom-palm, called by the people kabba. Our caravan resembles the march of a wandering tribe, there being camels, sheep, oxen, asses, dogs, with all the paraphernalia of tents, cooking utensils, &c. Some of the animals are laden, some unladen, playing, running, and skipping about. Then come the human animals, men, women, and children of every age. Our own caravan is mostly composed of the household and slaves of En-Noor, with two or three strangers. But now all changes to the salt-caravan, and we shall probably be soon absorbed in it.