they are taken to Kuka,
or to a great distance, that their irons are struck off.

The report is now current in Zinder, that the Sarkee is going, in the
course of seven or eight days, to razzia some neighbouring place in the
direction of Daura. They say, even, that he will not scruple to razzia
some of the villages of Meria if necessary; that is to say, a part of
the province of Zinder. My informants observed merely, "Oh, he must have
slaves to pay his debts; and as the largest fish eat the little fish, so
the great people eat the small people." Thus the protection of Islamism
is now come to nothing, and the cry is,--"To the razzia!" without
mentioning even the name of Kafer or Kerdi. In the end this will retard
the progress of Mahommedanism; for the blacks see that it is now no
protection for them against their more powerful neighbours and their
periodical razzias.

I visited several personages this afternoon; first, the Shereef Kebir,
with whom I ate some broiled fish brought from a neighbouring lake, and
some fine Bilma dates, soaked in milk. I asked him how it was that the
Sheikh committed to the governors or sultans of the provinces the awful
power of life and death. "Oh," replied he, "the Sheikh has given them
this power that he might not be bothered with their reports about
criminals. It is far better to finish quick with these people." Where
there are periodical razzias the sacredness of human life is unknown,
and the Shereef has been, besides, many years in the camp of
Abd-el-Kader, where a good deal of sanguinary work was carried on. He
thought it, therefore, quite right that the Sheikh should not fatigue
his sovereign conscience by deciding on the lives of criminals and other
suspected persons, and that the sooner they were hung or slaughtered the
better.

From the Shereef I passed on to the brother of the Sultan, a young man
of mild manners. I entered the inner part of the house, where were the
women. Verily the Zinder people have a strange love of dust, dirt, and
bare mud walls. In the two or three beehive huts which I explored, there
was not a single article of furniture, nor a mat to lie down upon. The
brother of the Sultan was sitting by his sister, and both on the dust of
the ground, without a mat. I am told, however, that they sleep on mats
and skins, which are, indeed, cheap enough; two or three pence, or two
or three hundred wadas, would purchase a good one. The sister of the
Sultan was coloured we