TUARICK GRANDILOQUENCE. 
207 
confounded with the Snltan of Aheer bearing the 
same name, came in and told us that he had just 
seen Wataitee, who was exceedingly exasperated, 
and who threatened to stop the caravan in the 
morning if his demands were not complied with. 
What is to be done? Were we to aim at satisfying 
all the unjust claims made upon us, we should not 
only be beggared immediately, but should have 
whole crowds of fresh suppliants coming in every 
day. Wataitee seems to expect that I should give 
him something like a hundred reals in money for 
his pretended extra services, and goes thundering 
about, " that the lands, and rocks, and mountains 
of Gh&,t do not belong to God, but to the Azgher, 
to whom the Creator has given them once and for 
ever, and who are the sovereign and omnipotent 
rulers of this portion of eartli — this large tract of 
Sahara." There has often been detected in the 
speeches of African princes a certain degree of blas- 
phemy and resistance to the omnipotent sovereignty 
of the Deity they adore ; and this kind of language 
was not new to me. The possessors of lawless 
powder seem easily to ideritii'y themselves with gods. 
To us, naked rocks, and treeless valleys, and bare 
stony plains, are objects without interest, except in 
a geological point of view. But it is very different 
with the Haghar and Azgher. In their eyes, a 
plain of stones and sand holds the place of a heath 
of growing bloom; a barren valley is a vale of 
fertility ; rocks and mountains are always objects of 
