I met with a number of the suburban inhabitants engaged in celebrating a wedding.  First came a group of women, dancing and throwing themselves into a variety of slow, languid, and lascivious postures, to the sound of some very primitive string-instrument.  Towards this group all the women of the neighbouring huts were gathering, some merely as spectators, others bringing dishes of meat.  Beyond was a crowd of men, among whom was the bridegroom helping the musicians to make a noise.  These musicians were an old man and old woman, each above ninety years of age.  The latter beat a calabash with a stick, whilst the former drew a bow over a single string tied to another calabash.  The bridegroom had got hold of a brass kettle, with which he supplied his contribution to the din.  Preparations for supper were going on; and, the harmony announcing this fact, idlers were coming in flocks from the distant hamlets and the fields.  Two new huts had been built, one for the bride and the other for the bridegroom.

These marriages produce very few children, which may partly arise from licentiousness, but chiefly, no doubt, from misery.  I afterwards saw the burial of an old lady, which ceremony set the whole town in motion.  The women screamed in crowds, and a great number of men went outside the walls to see the body consigned to its last resting-place.  Yusuf pretends that the burial took place two hours after decease, which is the ordinary practice here, although thirty-two hours are said to be the proper time.

To the 21st of May I was occupied in preparing a short report on Fezzan, with statements of the expedition and other necessary documents.

We have had a grand dinner at the house of the Greek doctor Paniotti.  The Bey, Bim Bashaw, his adjutant, the treasurer, and others were invited.  The French have boasted of the number of their dishes, but I think the Turks beat them hollow in this particular.  Besides two whole lambs, fowls, pigeons, there were at least twenty made dishes, with every variety of rich sweetmeat.  Amongst the early fruits of the season we had figs and apples.  The dinner was not quite so merry as Gagliuffi’s, the champagne being absent.

We had a smart rain-shower in the morning, and in the evening also there was a tempest of wind and lightning, and a little rain.  The flashes were very vivid, and lighted up the whole firmament.

The Tibboos persist in saying that there is plenty of water in their country, abundance of rain, frequent springs; and some go so far as to describe their streams as running a distance of from one to eight days’ journey.  They acknowledge, however, that the soil of their country is not very favourable to much cultivation of grain and fruit.  Perhaps they want to attract visitors, but are not likely to succeed at present.  Justly or unjustly, they bear a very bad character; and in Mourzuk, to call a man a Tibboo is rather worse than to call a man a Jew in Europe.