o enter
a town by day. Aghadez is situated on a hamadah, or lofty plateau of
sandstone and granite formation. Around, although there is no arable
soil, a good deal of herbage and wood is found in the depressions of the
plain. It is not surprising, therefore, that this much-talked-of capital
is nothing but a large village, as indeed are all the other places of
Aheer, with the exception of Asoudee. Aghadez, which is mentioned by Leo
Africanus, is said by tradition to have been founded or enlarged by
settlements from the north, consisting of a people called Arabs, but
probably Berbers, since expelled by the Tuaricks. It serves as a sort of
rendezvous between the Kailouees and the tribes to the south and west. A
peculiar language (Emghedesie) is spoken by the inhabitants in their
private intercourse; but Haussa is the idiom of trade. There are about
seven hundred inhabited houses scattered among the ruins; and of fifty
thousand people who must previously have lived within the walls, scarce
eight thousand remain.[7] The inhabitants are partly artizans, partly
merchants; but few caravans now pass on this route, and commerce with
Timbuctoo seems altogether to have ceased. The trade that exists is
entirely in provisions, principally in ghaseb, or millet, which is
imported from Damerghou. The system adopted is entirely one of
barter--the Aghadez money consisting of turkedi,[8] or dark-coloured
cotton for female clothing made in Soudan, Egyptian leather for sandals,
English calico, white shawls, cloves, pepper, pearls, &c. All these
objects are imported, the only manufactures of Aghadez being
leather-work (sandals and saddles) and coloured mats. I do not know what
materials are used in tanning. The Fezzanee gets assistance, according
to my fighi, from four trees--the graut, the ethel, the pomegranate, and
the essalan. The first and last are a species of acacia. Women and men
work in their houses at the production of these articles, and merchants
go and purchase _a domicile_, there being now no shops. There are three
market-places or bazaars, where prices are very low.

[7] This is Dr. Barth's statement, which I have introduced from
his own account. It will have been seen that Mr. Richardson
(see vol. i. "Note on the Territorial Division of Aheer,")
makes a much lower estimate. I may here remind the reader,
that even when in his diary Mr. Richardson inserts two
different and contradictory statements