COMMUNICATIONS. 
Ill 
that 1 5' or 20,000 troops might, upon an emergency, be raifed. 
The only expedition of a miUtary nature that has happened 
within his remembrance, was undertaken on the following ac- 
count : — 
South-Eaft of the capital, at the diftance of 150 miles, is a 
wide and fandy defart, entirely barren, and oppreffed with a fuf- 
focating heat. LTimediately beyond this defart, the width of 
which is about 200 miles, the mountains of Tibefli, inhabited 
by a wild and favage people of that name, begin to take their 
rife. Ferocious in their manners, free-booters in their princi- 
ples, and fecure, as they thought, in the natural defences of 
their fituation, thefe independent mountaineers became the 
terror of the caravans which traded from Fezzan to Boriiou, 
and which are obliged to pafs the Weilern extremity of the De- 
fart. But at length, having plundered a caravan which belonged 
to the King himfelf, and having killed about twentv of his peo- 
ple, their conduft provoked his refentment, and determined him 
to revenge the infult. AVith this view he immediately raifed a 
fmall army of from 3 to 4,000 men, the command of v/hich he 
gave to an able and a6live M.ag/frrate^ announcing, by that ap- 
pointment, that he fent them, not to fubdue a refpeftable cnem^', 
but to punilli an aifemblage of plunderers and affafiins. Hav- 
ing. 
