Some are in fine cast-off clothes, with tarnished embroidery, whilst others are quite or nearly naked, without even a cap on their heads, and the procession is closed by a boy, tottering under the weight of his master's state gun, which is never allowed to be fired off.
In Mourzouk, the luxuries of life are very limited, the people principally subsisting on dates.

Many do not, for months together, taste corn; when obtained, they make it into a paste called _asooda,_ which is a softer kind of _bazeen._ Fowls have now almost disappeared in the country, owing to the sultan having appropriated all he could find for the consumption of his own family.

The sheep and goats are driven from the mountains near Benioleed, a distance of four hundred miles; they pass over one desert, which, at their rate of travelling, occupies five days, without food or water.

Numbers therefore die, which in course raises the price of the survivors, They are valued at three or four dollars each, when they arrive, being quite skeletons, and are as high as ten and twelve, when fatted.

Bread is badly made, and is baked in ovens formed of clay in holes in the earth, and heated by burning wood; the loaves, or rather flat cakes are struck into the side, and are thus baked by the heat which rises from the embers.