70 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. XL. 
the place. The cry " 'Ala e dhahar ! kla e' dha- 
har" ("Mount! mount!") — properly speaking, " In 
the saddle!" "in the saddle!" — sounded from all 
sides, and the horsemen hurried past us ; but it was 
only a small party of freebooters, who, in the twi- 
light of the evening, had made an attack upon the 
camels, and after having put to flight two or three men 
and killed a horseman, had driven off a part of the 
herd. Our friends pursued the robbers at full speed, 
and soon overtook them, when they retreated into the 
thicket, and gave up their booty. 
In this way we had a specimen of the character of 
our present expedition the very first day we had 
joined this little horde ; and the lamentations of the 
females, on account of the man who had been slain, 
sounded wofully through the night, and brought 
before our minds the fate which, in a very short 
time, might befall ourselves. Late in the night, 
when the alarm had subsided, Sheikh Gh6t sent us a 
heifer as a present. 
Thursday, ^ e remained quietly in our encamp- 
October 2nd. men t ? and obtained a great deal of valuable 
information respecting the south-eastern part of the 
lake and the districts adjacent.* Thus the day passed 
by most pleasantly. 
Nothing remarkable happened to us on the follow- 
ing day, except the arrival of the important news that 
the Agid of Waday, who had resided in Mawo, on the 
* The whole of this information is collected in the Appendix. 
