is to talk with the natives of those untrodden countries, to which
chance may some day lead us! He says Tibesty is ten days from Gatroun,
and fourteen from Mourzuk. It is all mountainous, except one long wady
where the population is located. There is no regular town; but all along
the valley the population, which is said to be about 5000, though desert
statistics are little to be credited, is scattered in groups of three or
four, cultivating the ground and tending on the flocks which feed on the
rich herbage, whilst goats scramble for food along the slopes of the
boundary mountains. The people dwell either in huts or in caverns
scooped out of the sides of hills, some of them very extensive. What a
picture of primitive life! Families living separate, not yet driven to
hide behind walls, or congregate in masses for safety. The desert is
their bulwark. This place lies, indeed, far east of the caravan route
from Bornou. There is no road direct eastward from Tibesty, but caravans
can go south-east to Wadaï. The valley produces, besides other grain, a
good quantity of ghaseb, which is the principal food of the inhabitants.
Some palms rise here and there in clumps, but are not very productive;
and dates are imported from Fezzan. The tree most frequent is the
tholukh; but there is also another common tree, called the arak. In the
open country, the wadan, the gazelle, and the ostrich are found, and the
people hunt them with dogs. Good water is supplied by wells and streams,
in sufficient quantities to irrigate the fields of ghaseb, wheat, and
barley. Rain is abundant some years, but fails in others; torrents are
continually descending from the mountains: one stream flows through a
space of two days' journey. If these accounts be correct, the country
must be one of the most interesting in Africa. They say, that on account
the height of the mountains some of the inhabitants do not see the moon
for fifteen days together. A Sultan rules paternally in this
out-of-the-way country, where the Mohammedan religion reigns paramount.
My informant made me pay three Tunisian piastres and two common