90 
MARKET OF MOURZUK. 
members of the great winter caravans. Contrary 
to what I had been told, these women seem to be 
rather remarkable for modesty and virtue than 
otherwise. It is worth observing, that Fatamah, the 
proper name of Mahomet's daughter, is here used, by 
excess of delicacy, to describe the softer sex, more 
especially ladies. 
From October to January, as at Ghat, there is a 
large annual souk, or market, at Mourzuk. One 
general caravan comes from Bornou and Soudan 
every year during the winter season, and small 
bodies of merchants also go up and down to Soudan 
in the summer; whilst to Bornou there is no inter- 
mediate trade. Caravans also congregate here from 
Egypt, Bengazi, Tripoli, Ghadamez, Ghat, and 
Tuat. From forty thousand to sixty thousand Spanish 
dollars is the value of the merchandise that usually 
changes hands during the great mart. The prin- 
cipal articles of traffic from the interior are slaves, 
senna, and ivory. This is the first year that a 
hundred and fifty cantars of elephants^ teeth have 
been brought from Bornou ; sixty or seventy of 
these were consigned to one merchant, forty were on 
account of the Vizier of Bornou, and the remainder 
belonged to Arab traders. This export of elephants' 
teeth direct via Fezzan has only lately been opened. 
Some manufactured cottons are likewise brought 
from Soudan, and sell easily in this part of the Sa- 
hara, especially amongst the Tuaricks. Besides, there 
are exported bullocks' and goats' skins, and a small 
