hundred bullocks. He took with him
no less than two thousand horse, a collection from all the petty
governments in the surrounding provinces, with their chiefs. All these
forces did little more than beat the air. The capture of five hundred
slaves will not pay the expenses of the expedition, but these people
never sit down to count the cost. Their reckoning-days are few and far
between.

There is a report here that the Sultans of Maradee, Gouber, Korgum, and
Tesaoua, have all gone together on a razzia to the territory of
Sakkatou, and a few of the people of Zinder have gone with them; and
this is the reason given for horses being now scarce in Zinder.

Haj Beshir has sent a message from Kuka, that I am to quicken my steps
thitherward. The kafila from Mourzuk has arrived, and many Arabs from
the north.

Of gubaga, called by the people of Zinder, ferri, four draas are sold in
Zinder for one hundred wadas, about twopence. This native cotton cloth,
when doubled, makes tents impervious to the summer rain.

There are about fifty Ghadamsee merchants in Kanou and Boushi, capital
of Yakoba, the principal of whom (here described as Maidukia) are:--

Haj Mohammed Bel Kasem.
Haj Tahir.
Mairimi.
Haj Mohammed Ben Habsa.
Hemed Basidi.
Kasem Ben Haiba.
Haj Ali.
Mohammed Makoren.
Haj Hoda.
Haj Abdullah.

There are some merchants of consequence from Fezzan, viz. Basha Ben
Haloum, Mohammed es-Salah, the agent of Gagliuffi, Sidi Ali, and Fighi
Hamit, who always goes to Goujah (_blad_ of the gour-nuts). This country
of the gour is distant three months' travelling, making small stages
south-west by west. Morocco, Tuat, and the countries of the west, are
scarcely represented by merchants in Kanou--there being one or two of
them at most. Nor are there any from Egypt or the East.

According to my informant, a small merchant, but well acquainted with
these parts, not more than one hundred and fifty or two hundred slaves
pass through or from Zinder annually to the north, and about five or six
hundred go by the route of Tesaoua to the north, i.e. Tripoli, and a few
to Souf. After all, the great slave-market is Central Africa itself.

An affecting incident is told of the people of Korgum during the late
razzia. The Sultan of Zinder besieged one town four days, and would not
allow the people to drink water. They then sent word that "they did not
know either God, or the Prophet Mahommed, or the Sheikh of Bornou, only
him, Sarkee Ibra