Chap. LXVIII. PRIVATE LIFE IN CAMP. 
485 
to impossible to express in it any general idea, without 
having recourse to some other foreign language. The 
Songhay of this region, having been deprived of all 
their former independent character more than two 
centuries and a half ago, and having become degraded 
and subject to foreigners, have lost also the national 
spirit of their idiom, which, instead of developing it- 
self, has become gradually poorer and more limited ; 
but I have no doubt that the dialect spoken by those 
still independent people in Dargol and Kulman is 
far richer, and anybody who wishes to study the 
Songhay language must study it there. The Arab 
visitors* to the town at this period were especially 
numerous, this being the most favourable season 
for the salt trade. A few months later scarcely a 
single Arab from abroad frequents the town. 
The private life of the people in these encamp- 
ments runs on very tranquilly, when there is no pre- 
datory incursion, which however is often enough 
the case. Most of these mixed Arabs have only one 
wife at a time, and they seem to lead a quiet domestic 
life, very like that of the Sheikh himself. I scarcely 
imagine that there is in Europe a person more sin- 
cerely attached to his wife and children than my 
host was. In fact, it might be said that he was a 
little too dependent on the will of his wife. The 
difference which I found between the position of 
* I must here testify to the accuracy with which Mr. Raffenel, 
in the plates illustrating his two journeys in Negroland, has re- 
presented the character of these Western Arabs or Moors. 
i i 3 
