FROM KAYES TO TIMBUKTU 6i all right again two or three days afterwards, they are ill for more than a month. During the period of convalescence the children are not allowed to return to the huts of their parents. Under the care of the blacksmiths they are to be seen going round and round the villages in small parties singing, and during this march they are allowed to take anything they fancy without paying for it. All this time the girls are covered by big white veils, whilst the boys wear a cap of a peculiar shape ; both sexes carry a musical instrument made of pieces of calabash, threaded on a thin branch of some tree, the clinking of which is heard a long way off.