se people. With the exception of the Gatronee
and my mahadee, the rest ill deserved their Christmas-box, but it is
necessary to forget and to forgive. However, I am now more strict with
them, as we are leaving the Tuaricks, amongst whom some of our servants
became almost Tuaricks themselves in manners.

The Sultan of Asoudee is still with us, and keeps up a sort of state
about him, although he is a poor weak fellow indeed, compared to
En-Noor. He has not paid us a visit, and we have not seen him. En-Noor,
probably, does not wish to bother us with such a visit. The musicians
who saluted us this morning came from him, but they did not know it was
a feast-day of Christians, and only came to pick up what they could get.
I sent Madame En-Noor a piece of white loaf-sugar, and told her it was a
Christmas-box. She received it with many thanks; so I have chronicled
all our doings this day. I read the two first chapters of St. Luke in
Arabic. We had no provisions, or anything with which we could produce
the resemblance of a plum-pudding. As to roast beef, we have some bits
of preserved beef, which we eat with our baseen and hamsa.

Amidst so many uncertainties in Central Africa we may not see another
Christmas-day. O God! whenever the time of our departure is come, may we
be found relying for salvation on that Saviour, thine only-begotten Son,
born on this day.

Overweg and I conversed late at night on the mechanism of the heavens,
and the antiquity of the world, according to the received theories of
astronomers and geologists; the dark and black vault above, sprinkled
over with brilliant points, being the object which first set our
thoughts in motion. The stars are time itself, and also illustrations of
the passage of light through the universe. The earth was once a hotter
orb, passing successively from a vaporous to a fluid, and then a solid
state. The northern climes were once torrid zones, from the evidence of
the fossil remains and from coals, which are masses of tropical trees.
Such were the speculations in which we indulged.[12]

[12] I have not thought it advisable to abridge or alter this
_naive_ account of a Christmas-day on the southern borders
of the Sahara. Mr. Richardson seems already to feel certain
presentiments of the fate that awaited him. In other places
I have omitted devotional passages; but in this it seemed
to me that it would be unjust to the memory of this amiable