46 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XXXIX. 
nine o'clock we reached the far-famed place Ngegimi, 
and were greatly disappointed at finding an open, 
poor-looking village, consisting of detached conical 
huts, without the least comfort, which, even in these 
light structures, may well be attained to a certain 
degree. The hungry inhabitants would not receive 
anything in exchange for a few fowls which we wanted 
to buy, except grain, of which we ourselves, in these 
desolate regions, stood too much in need to have 
given it away without an adequate substitute. 
The situation of this place is very unfavourable, 
since the ruler of Bornu has restricted his real 
dominion within the border of the komadugu, and 
the poor inhabitants are constantly in fear of being 
molested by a ghazzia of the Taw&rek. Indeed, two 
years later, this village was plundered by these free- 
booting hordes; and some months afterwards, in the 
year 1854, the remainder of the population, who had 
not been carried away into captivity, were obliged, 
by the high floods of the lagoon, to leave their old 
dwelling-place altogether, and build a new village on 
the slope of the sand-hills, where I found it at the end 
of May, 1855. As for Wudi (a large place, once an 
occasional residence of the Bornu kings) and Lari, 
both mentioned by Denham and Clapperton, they 
have long been deserted, Wudi having been taken and 
ransacked by the Tawarek in the year 1838, and Lari 
a little later. At present only a few palm-trees (said 
to yield a kind of date far superior to the little black 
Kanem dates) in the sand-hills about eight miles S. W. 
