d us some
other stunted shrubs. All trees are dwarfish in these plateaux.

Various distinguished characters are amongst the servants and slaves of
En-Noor. One fellow is called the "King of the Donkeys," another wench
is styled the "Queen of the Goats;" Zumzug is properly named _Proban
berau_, "a great thief," from his thievish propensities. Then there is
the "Lad of the Arrows," the fellow who is always boasting of how many
people he has killed with arrows, &c. &c.; but Zumzug requires especial
notice from me, on account of his having run off to Aghadez with a
caftan of mine; and also from the curious circumstance that En-Noor
keeps such a thief amongst his slaves, so confounding the honest with
the thievish servants.

_January 1, 1851._--A strong, bleak, north-east wind ushers in the New
Year. It began yesterday, and is likely to continue for some time. Most
comfortless and disagreeable weather is this for the caravan. The people
do not like to move, and show a decided tendency to hibernation. Some
camels are also lost--escaped from the numbed fingers of their drivers.
I, too, feel it cold; and yet there is so much of home in this
weather--this keen, bracing air--that I cannot complain.

Our people caught the camels at length, and we proceeded still
southwards. After three hours' travelling we appeared to have passed the
most barren portion of the plateau, and came upon a new species of tree,
called in Haussa, _tadana_. We have this day had a splendid sight of
ostriches--eleven feeding in a troop near us, quietly like so many
sheep--eccentric birds of their species, showing no tendency to scud
away. Perhaps I shall never see so many again together. They were all
black, with maybe a white feather or two underneath the sombre plumage.

The small tholukh-trees are full of birds' nests. In the Northern Sahara
a bird's nest was not to be seen, but here the trees are all covered
with them. Amongst the various smaller ones, we came upon a huge
vulture's nest on a very small tholukh, which seemed to bend and look
unhappy beneath the weight of this den of rapacity and violence. There
are hereabouts no rocks for the eagles to build upon. We halted amidst
abundance of herbage and small trees, which afforded a little shelter
from the wind.

It is, perhaps, as well that we begin the year with this most bleak and
unlovely day. We may have a better one to terminate 1851. I was obliged
to increase my travelling clothes, and put