continues intense--from 100° to 104°, and 130° in the sun. Cooler
weather is expected in August; but at present all the natives complain,
and fevers are becoming prevalent. In the desert we shall escape that
danger; for disease comes only in the moist depression of the plateau on
which Mourzuk stands. We hear talk, by the way, of a fine new
route--only forty days--just opened, from Ghât to Timbuctoo, across the
deserts of Haghar. The present Sultan of the Haghar Tuaricks is called
Ghamama.

One of our party, who undertook to accompany us to take the management
of the boat, has not proved equal to the occasion; and I have therefore
written to Tripoli, to request that two Moorish sailors, of Jerbah if
possible, should be sent up by the direct route to Bornou. I had almost
engaged a very excellent person at Tripoli, the captain of the vessel in
which I arrived; but when he called at the Consulate on the subject,
some minor official ordered him off with a contemptuous "Barra! barra!"
and he accordingly yielded to the solicitations of his crew and embarked
without seeing me. There is too much of this self-sufficiency and
off-handedness in all Consulates in the Levant, where a grain of
authority is apt at once to magnify a man, in his own estimation, into a
mighty potentate. I regret my Jerbine captain very much; he originally
volunteered to accompany us, and entered into my plans with an
enthusiasm and intelligence rare among Muslims.

These small details of our expedition are interesting to me to record,
though probably many will think them superfluous. Perhaps they will
serve to give a true idea of the magnitude of the undertaking, and of
the great responsibility which weighed upon me, and thus prove an
anticipatory excuse for any accusation of shortcoming or dilatoriness
that may be preferred against me. I will not, however, enter further