Late in the evening Yusuf and the Sfaxee came from En-Noor with a most threatening message.  The Sheikh says, in substance, that “Everybody wishes to attack us, and take away our property.  To protect us, therefore, and conduct us to Zinder, he must have, at least, seven hundred dollars.”  At first he demanded one thousand, and then came down to seven hundred.  Such is the man to whom we are recommended as a friend and protector.  None of the robbers have yet taken so large a sum, so that this is the greatest, grandest of the brigands!  I went to bed disquieted by the enormity of En-Noor’s demands.

14th.—­As may be imagined, I passed an unquiet night, disturbed by the most gloomy forebodings.  It now appeared to me that all the amenity of the Sultan had been assumed, in order that he might first get all he could out of us by gentle means, previous to resorting to threats and bullying.  As to resistance, it is, of course, impossible, if imperative demands be made.  In the morning En-Noor sent a message, to the effect that he could not see us unless we had made up our minds to give him the seven hundred dollars.  He is getting more and more bold and impertinent.  I deputed Mahommed Tunisee and the Sfaxee to him as negotiators.  They are to offer a present of five hundred dollars; that is to say, three hundred for the escort to Zinder, and the remaining two hundred after the signing of the treaty.  With some difficulty the matter was for the present arranged, by the sacrifice of another hundred dollars as a present to the courtiers of the great man, in order that they might induce him to be so kind as to accept of the remaining five hundred!  My agents were greatly assisted by the Wakeel of Makersee of Mourzuk.  I consented to the arrangement on En-Noor’s writing a letter to her Majesty’s Government, promising protection to British travellers for the future; and thus ended this new, and I may say, flagrant series of exactions.  Possibly, had I been alone, I might have been able to hold out longer and more successfully; but it is somewhat embarrassing to act with persons who share in your councils without sharing in your responsibility, and who naturally seek the shortest and easiest method of getting over all difficulties.  The conclusion of the arrangement had a tranquillising effect upon our encampment, especially on my worthy German colleagues.

The people have complained to En-Noor that we are “writing the country.”  This is an old complaint, and pervades all Northern Africa and the Desert, “that the Christians come first to write a country, and afterwards invade or capture it.”  Travellers, therefore, especially when they venture to use the pen in public, are looked upon as spies, which may in part account for the rough treatment they sometimes receive.