them take two or three female slaves. How is this superabundant supply
of the softer sex kept up? If I am noticing a mere temporary phenomenon,
the destruction of men in the razzias may account for the disproportion.
Besides, the Kailouees are always imparting fresh slaves into their
country.

The poor people of Tintalous are fed chiefly on the pounded grains of
the herb _bou rekaba_. It is a real Asbenouee dish. Overweg made a
supper of it one evening. I tasted it, and find it has a very strong
flavour of herbs; that is to say, what is commonly imagined to be the
flavour of herbs in general. The people now go a long way for wood. The
tholukh-trees of the valley are not allowed to be cut down; they are
always preserved as a resource for the time of drought and dearth, when
the flocks can find no herbage in the valley. The boughs are at such
junctures lopped off, and the flocks are fed on the leaves. Thus I have
seen the goats and sheep fed on the tholukh-leaves on the plains of
Mourzuk, as well as near this place. Another reason may induce En-Noor
to save the tholukh-trees,--that there may be a perpetual shade and
verdure in the valley of Tintalous. There are many finer valleys than
this in Asben, and were the trees not preserved, it would be a very
barren, unlively spot.

This evening, two hours after sunset, Venus exhibited her most splendid
phasis: the west, where she was setting, about half-an-hour before she
disappeared, was lit up as if it was moonlight. On concealing the
planet, the effect produced was that of the setting of the moon. Every
star was eclipsed in the western circle of the heavens, I never saw
anything before equal to this. I could here fully realise the words of
Scripture, that the stars were made also "to give light upon the earth."