338 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. LXXXII. 
and on the 2nd of October a small foray of Tagaraa 
plundered the village of Saldme together with a 
neighbouring hamlet, carrying away a good number 
of people. 
A great dearth of provisions prevailed, not only 
with regard to meat, but even corn, which was the 
more surprising to us, as we had been accustomed in 
Timbuktu to very low prices, although provisions are 
there brought from so great a distance. We were 
able in that town to buy a sheep for 500 or 600 
kurdi, but we could here find none under 3000, the 
best fetching as much as 5000 ; and as for corn, the 
suniye, which we bought in Timbuktu for 3000 to 
4000, we should have been glad to buy here with 
10,000, if such large quantities had been brought 
into the market at all. It was, besides, extremely 
difficult for me to find shells. I was thus obliged to 
sell five dollars for 11,000 shells, while in Timbuktu 
they would have fetched 15,000. I also sold the 
corals which I had left at a low price, in order to 
be enabled to keep up my establishment. Cotton 
strips, which are liked better in the country places, 
were still dearer in proportion than shells. 
The horse which I rode myself being incapable of 
any further exertion, and my camels having either 
died or become totally exhausted, I was thus thrown, 
much against my inclination, upon the generosity of 
the prince, and in order to stimulate his good will, 
besides the present which I offered to him at my 
first interview, I gave him in a second audience ten 
