330 
WEDDING — MORE RAZZIAS. 
all night long. First, there was a drum perpetually- 
beating, announcing rudely enough the approach- 
ing nuptials ; then there was a cricket singing shrill 
notes at my head ; and then there was the screech- 
owl making the valley of Tintalous ring again with, 
its hideous shriek. Add to all, between the roll of 
the big noisy drum, the cries and uproar of the 
people. This morning there are groups of people 
squatting all about. Two maharees are riding 
round and round one group. Before another is a 
man dancing as indelicately as a Moorish woman of 
the coast. 
News of still another razzia ushers in the day. 
A small caravan, it is reported, was attacked a few 
days ago, on the route between this and Zinder. 
The principal merchant was killed, and all the 
goods and slaves carried away. The few agents 
now in Tintalous see clearly that this route will 
become, for the future, safe only for large caravans. 
En-Noor sa,ys of the villages which were attacked 
by the tribe of Oulimid, that the people must have 
been chickens not to have defended themselves; 
but the fact is, the whole country is now, to a 
certain extent, abandoned to the pillage of lawless 
banditti. 
In the evening the people contrived to celebrate 
the preliminaries of the approaching nuptials. The 
bride, I now find, is no less a personage than the 
daughter of En-Noor, — a full-grown desert prin- 
cess. The Sfaxee and several other foreign mer- 
