50 
A HUNGRY SULTAN. 
son of the Sultan of Koui'var. As we proceed onwards, 
princes and sons of princes will thicken upon us. 
21th. — I packed up and sent off all my de- 
spatches to Mourzuk, together with a few trifling- 
things for my poor wife, by the hand of Mousa 
Waled Haj-Ali, the virtual Sheikh of the Tanel- 
kums. 
28th. — All the male inhabitants, with the excep- 
tion of five or six, have gone off this morning to 
fetch salt from Bilma. They return here in the 
course of a month, and the greater part of the salt 
is transported from hence to Soudan by the next 
caravan. We have heard of our friends at Aghadez. 
They are expected here in a few days. The new 
Sultan of Aghadez is said — but there is little accu- 
racy in these desert reports — to have gone on an 
expedition west, to settle some differences between 
some tribes in arms against one another. The 
people also say that the new Sultan is "hungry," 
and is glad of such an opportunity to get " some- 
thing to eat." This is the way in which they would 
describe a Chancellor of the Exchequer planning a 
new tax. 
Some say the object of the razzia is to chastise 
the Fadeea for attacking us ; but still the main ob- 
ject is to fill the Sultan's "own hungry belly." 
Such are Asbenouee politics. 
Bahin-Zakee, the Soudanese name of the Kai- 
louee green cap, I know here means the " lions 
mouth." This is the phrase with which I always 
