328 
DOOM FRUIT AND GOUR-NUT. 
but the Kai'd of this village pretends they are not 
Tuaricks. He means, probably, not the same as 
the Tuaricks of Asben. It is quite clear that these 
Daggera inhabit all the northern line of Bornou, 
from Zinder to Kuka ; skirting, in fact, all the left 
of our route. They join the Damerghou territory, 
and thus extend from that province west to Kanem, 
and the route of Bornou east. The Tuaricks are 
ever located on the confines of the desert. Here 
they roam free, and rob and plunder where they 
have opportunity, or when the princes of Bornou 
and Soudan cannot check them. 
Our people gnaw the doom fruit, but it is just 
like gnawing the bark of a tree, slightly flavoured 
with some aroma. They begin to eat them from 
childhood, and so keep on, as the gour-nuts are 
chewed by children ; and so the taste is sucked in 
with their mother's milk. The gour-nut, however, 
is something, whilst the doom fruit is mere wood. 
The tree, nevertheless, is green, and in waving 
forests delightfully relieves this hot, burning, African 
landscape. 
The portion of the caravan consisting of bullocks 
is always much later than the rest: to-day they 
were four hours after us. I consider that the hours 
we now go are at least two and a-half or three 
English miles in length, as we advance at a speed 
quite equal to a horse walking at a good pace ; nay, 
I might say, some hours we make three and a-half 
English miles. 
