224 THE SHEREEF AND THE SULTAn's BROTHER. 
it was that the Sheikh committed to the governors 
or sultans of the provinces the awful power of life 
and death. " Oh," replied he, " the Sheikh has 
given them this power that he might not be bothered 
with their reports about criminals. It is far better 
to finish quick with these people." Where there 
are periodical razzias the sacred ness of human life 
is unknown, and the Shereef has been, besides, 
many years in the camp of Abd-el-Kader, where a 
good deal of sanguinary work was carried on. He 
thought it, therefore, quite right that the Sheikh 
should not fatigue his sovereign conscience by de- 
ciding on the lives of criminals and other suspected 
persons, and that the sooner they were hung or 
slaughtered the better. 
From the Shereef I passed on to the brother of 
the Sultan, a young man of mild manners. I en- 
tered the inner part of the house, where were the 
women. Verily the Zinder people have a strange 
love of dust, dirt, and bare mud walls. In the two 
or three beehive huts which I explored, there was 
not a single article of furniture, nor a mat to lie 
down upon. The brother of the Sultan was sitting 
by his sister, and both on the dust of the ground, 
without a mat. I am told, however, that they sleep 
on mats and skins, which are, indeed, cheap 
enough : two or three pence, or two or three hun- 
dred wadas, would purchase a good one. The sister 
of the Sultan was coloured well with indigo, the 
dark blue of which replaces the yellow ochre of the 
