352 ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



" We feel severely the lack of fruit and vegetables ; of the latter there are 

 only tomatoes and onions ; and of the former, with the exception of water- 

 melons and breadmelons, there is absolutely nothing which is at all fit to 

 eat ; as for the berries used as food by the natives, they would not be given 

 to the cattle at home. Meat and poultry are consequently almost the sole 

 viands, and they are very plentiful and cheap. A fowl may be bought 

 for two needles, a sheep for eighteen pence, and a large ox for six shillings. 

 We live chiefly on fowls, as butcher's meat keeps sweet only a day and a 

 half at the most. 



41 The soil is capable of all kinds of cultivation, if there were but people 

 here laborious enough to till it. Indigo, cotton, and melons grow wild ; 

 rice and wheat could be raised in any quantity : the former is particularly 

 good, but so rare that it is only to be had as a present from the sultan. 



" Lake Tsad is not so much a fine clear water, but a morass, extending 

 farther than the eye can reach, and on its banks mosquitoes in indescri- 

 bable numbers sting mail and horse nearly to death. I cannot sleep by 

 the lake unless I get the straw hut which serves me for a dwelling filled 

 to suffocation with smoke, and am compelled to keep up a fire in it for this 

 purpose throughout the whole night. Kuka lies seven English miles w r est 

 from the lake, and has consequently fewer gnats, but the flies swarm in 

 infinite multitudes. Nature seems to have provided for their destruction 

 two small species of lizards, which run by thousands to and fro upon the 

 walls with inexpressible rapidity, and snap up the insects with singular 

 readiness. The trees are thickly peopled with chameleons. Beetles and 

 butterflies are extremely scarce ; of the former I have procured a sight of 

 two species only, of the latter only about ten or twelve, and but one large 

 one among them. On the other hand, the ants and termites are very 

 numerous ; they consume all the woollen and linen stuffs, if these are not 

 secured and shut up with the greatest care. They found their way unfor- 

 tunately into a packet of plants of the desert which I had collected, and 

 made sad havoc with them. The land is also abundantly infested with 

 venomous serpents and scorpions, and with toads from four to five inches 

 in diameter. There is a vast number of elephants and hippopotami by the 

 lake ; I have not unfrequently seen from twenty to thirty of the latter 

 together. Lions and leopards are scarcer ; I have not had a sight of any 

 of the former, though I have heard them roar plainly enough, but I saw a 

 very fine specimen of the latter only a short time since. I was disap- 

 pointed, however, of getting a shot at him, as he became aware of my 

 presence when he was about thirty to forty paces off, and retreated with 

 all speed into an impenetrable acacia thicket. Large wild boars (Phasco- 

 charus) are very plentiful ; they live in burrows in the woods. Gazelles 

 and antelopes are likwise very numerous ; the last are of two or three 

 species. Wild buffaloes frequent the marshy shore of the lake, and are 

 considered a good booty, on account of their fle^h and hide." 



