We must pay them some attention when they come under
our observation.

There is a man come from Dr. Barth and his party. They are expected in
the course of forty-eight hours. En-Noor is very angry that they do not
mend their pace. We are all ready to start. An immense caravan is
waiting for their arrival.

_31st._--The people begin to pester me to marry another wife in
Soudan,--one very young and with large breasts is the kind of article
they recommend.

The mysteries of Tintalous are celebrated at the well in the evening,
under the bright, glowing light of Venus, which star is now seen a
couple of hours above the horizon after sunset. On the margin of the
well, which is on the other side of the wady, at the distance of a
quarter of a mile, the damsels of Tintalous regularly meet their lovers,
and spend with them half an hour of sweet communion. Some even retire to
the shade of a large-spreading tholukh near, or behind blocks of rock
rising on the edge of the valley, and indulge in lawful or unlawful
embraces. The strangers who come here, the Moors of Tripoli and Fezzan,
are freely initiated into these mysteries.

I am told by our servants, who have been round to all the villages or
towns in the neighbourhood of Tintalous for the purchase of ghaseb, that
these places, small or large, are none of them equal to Tintalous,
although the houses are much the same--bell-shaped huts, and the people
are of the same character. What has greatly astonished our servants is
the fewness of the men; indeed, in some villages they saw no other
persons but women and children, and scarcely any children. What is the
cause of this? It would seem that the men are consumed by the women.
These women bear few children, and perhaps this may in part account for,
if it be not produced by, their excessive licentiousness. Yet the men
are on the wing a great part of the year. The Kailouees, however,
wherever they go, have their women at hand, and during a journey many of
them take two or three female slaves. How is this superabundant supply
of the softer sex kept up? If I am noticing a mere temporary phenomenon,
the destruction of men in the razzias may account for the disproportion.
Besides, the Kailouees are always imparting fresh slaves into their
country.

The poor people of Tintalous are fed chiefly on the pounded grains of
the herb _bou rekaba_. It is a real Asbenouee dish. Overweg made a
supper of it one evening. I tasted it, and find it