DEPARTURE FROM LAKE ALEG. 
Ill 
CHAPTER IV. 
Difficulty in going to market. — Oxen stolen by a neighbouring tribe. — The 
Ramadan. — Circumcision. — ^The feast of Tabasky. — Gum trade with 
the Europeans. — My return to St. Louis. 
We sojourned upon the shore of lake Aleg till the 20th 
January. The north winds blew with violence and were 
very cold ; part of the time they lasted^ I was kept in my tent 
by fever. In the course of the month, slaves were sent to a 
distance with part of the cattle, because the grass diminished 
around the camp ; they only kept the milch cows, as indis- 
pensibly requisite for the support of the inhabitants : they 
pursue this plan to avoid removing the tents elsewhere. 
The 2 1st January, 1825, the pastures being entirely 
exhausted, we broke up the camp and went two miles to the 
east, over a soil covered with ferruginous hillocks. The 
place at which we halted was of the same nature, and yet 
covered with herbage. The slaves set out in the morning to 
fetch water from the lake and did not return till night ; the 
camp was without water tiil sun-set, but fortunately the 
weather was not hot or we should have suffered severely. 
On the sixth of February, we returned towards the 
west : at the distance of three miles W. S. W., we crossed 
the rivulet, and it was not till we had gone nine miles further 
that we encamped upon a sandy soil, very hard and covered 
with forage. I had remarked on the banks of the rivulet the 
zizyphus lotus ; here we found only the balanites cegyptiaca. 
People were again sent to the lake for water ; it was very 
scarce in the camp on account of the distance ; there was 
often not enough for cooking the meals. 
Until this time I had only seen some single Wadats ; 
I had not seen them in numbers. On the 10th a great 
