Some of the merchants had as many as three female slaves a-piece; but it is to be observed, that they are mere girls.  The Africans who can afford to indulge their tastes, abhor women of any age.  All their slaves are of tender years.  The older these gentlemen get, the younger they require their concubines to be.  An aged sinner of Aghadez had a mere child with him.  En-Noor is said to have half-a-dozen stout girls running about his house.  Really, to satisfy the passions and sensuality of these Africans, women should be like the houris of Paradise, and never grow old.  Those that accompanied us were, of course, regarded as mistresses, but were required also to do nearly all the drudgery of the caravan.  Their masters must have sold much prettier and finer girls at Ghat.

The name of the place where we are now encamped is, as I have said, Takeesat, and that of the rocky plain we traversed between Esalan and Aisou is [omitted in Journal].  We shall now have great confusion in the denominations of places, the Tuaricks using one name and the Kailouees another.

20th.—­We rose early, and at four o’clock were already in motion.  It was a long and weary day—­fourteen hours of actual travelling; but this, thank Heaven! is, we are told, the last long stretch of that kind we shall have to undertake.  The country was nearly similar to that between Falezlez and Aisou; plains or slightly indented valleys.  The granite appeared again, with sandstone on the top.  No herbage was found to-day, except a few scanty bits here and there.

In the morning our blacks all ran up to a sugar-loaf shaped rock, which they called their altar or temple, Jama.  There they performed certain strange incantations, after which they descended and began to indulge in mock-fights, sometimes even simulating an attack upon the caravan.  What was the real meaning of their pantomime it was impossible to make out, but they amused us exceedingly by their wild gestures and cries.

The three mysterious Haghars still continued to follow us throughout the day, declaring that they had no evil intentions, but were merely poor wayfarers journeying to Aheer.  They have made friends with the Tanelkums, with whom they have more points of resemblance than with the Kailouees.  In appearance and manners they are remarkable enough.  They wear a shield of bullock or rhinoceros hide hanging down on one side of their camels.  During our march, it was evidently their desire to show off; for they moved in order of battle as they called it, in a line, the two who had spears holding them bravely up.  It was certainly a pretty sight to see them play off this little exercise.  But in the evening, after dark, they returned from feeding their camels somewhere in the mountains, and came and bivouacked close to us and our baggage.  This alarmed us, and we sent En-Noor to remonstrate with them.  After some wrangling, they promised to leave us if we would give them supper.  We did so, and got rid of them for the night.