CHAP. VIII. 
SOCKNA. 
SIS 
seen : seven feet eight inches from the ground to his hump, which 
was a low one. I was offered two dollars for him, but preferred 
killing him, to feed ourselves and fellow travellers. As we had to 
hire fresh camels here, we discharged those which had brought us 
from Morzouk, and I was heartily glad to get rid of the Sockna 
drivers, who are never contented, always trying to deceive, and 
never assisting any one. 
We found that the Bashaw had sent chowses with eight horses, 
the property of his late son, to be disposed of in Fezzan for Negroes, 
and the purchasers were to sell them in the interior, so that they 
might never again be seen at Tripoli. The news brought by these 
people occasioned a general mourning, and the women, this day and 
the preceding one, were out on the sands, howling, beating the 
Tubbel, or alarm drum, tearing their hair and faces, and committing 
all sort of extravagancies, which always ended in frenzy, though they 
would in their hearts have rejoiced to learn that the whole Kora- 
manlie race was extinct. 
Almost all the houses here have, in the principal rooms, a black 
Une drawn round them about breast high, with wetted gunpowder. 
If the woman of the house is delivered of a male child, this 
precaution prevents Iblis and the devil's children, or imps, from 
coming into the room to tease or injure him ; or, what is worse, to 
make him squint. 
Our friend and travelling companion, Sadig, who had always been 
very agreeable and cheerful, this day left us, to our great regret, on 
his return to his native town, Wadan ; whither he invited me to 
accompany him, assuring me that I should drink nothing but sweet 
milk and Lackbi, and that at every meal a new dish of whatever de- 
scription I chose should be prepared for me. It was his intention 
to send his slaves to Mesurata on the sea-coast, to exchange them 
for sheep. 
