letters to Tripoli. I told him to go about his business; that he was a
man of words and had no heart, otherwise he would continue with us to
Mourzuk. I wished to discourage such acts of desertion, for they produce
always a bad effect. My German companions seemed glad to get rid of him.

We started again on Sunday morning (the 28th). This was our first day of
sand. We had almost forgotten that there was such a thing as sand in the
desert; but we shall have two days more of the same kind of travelling,
to keep us in mind of this unpleasant truth. However, we were glad
enough to leave Edree. Our marabout, comparing this place with El-Wady,
for which we are now journeying, says, "Edree is like a jackass; El-Wady
is like a camel!" Yusuf calls Edree "the city of camel-bugs." These
vermin are the leeches of the camels. During the morning we passed two
or three forests of palms, and afterwards traversed a flat valley, where
was a little herbage. The people said; "There is no tareek (track): the
tareek is in our heads." Bou Keta noted the route in many parts by the
presence of camels' dung; but the shape of the sand-hills in these parts
seems to be perfectly familiar to these men. We saw one or two lizards,
but no birds or other signs of life, except two brown-black Fezzanees,
trudging over the desert.

At four in the afternoon, after a day of hot wind, we encamped in Wady
Guber, where there is water two or three feet below the surface; and a
small forest of palms belonging to our camel-drivers, having descended
to them in small groups from their grandfathers.

Next day (29th) we again went on over the sand, which extends beyond
Ghadamez and Souf, to the west, and even to Egypt on the east. It is met
at different points by the khafilahs, and crossed in different numbers
of days. We found it very hard work to cross it, and understood why, in
these parts, the words _raml_, sand, and _war_, difficult, have become
convertible terms. Bou Keta had considerable trouble in keeping to the
route, being reduced to depend chiefly on the camels' dung, which rolls
about the surface of the sand. Here and there was a patch of coarse
herbage, scattered like black spots on the bright, white surface. Every
object was very much magnified at a little distance; I saw what seemed
to me to be a horse on the top of one of the hills, but on drawing near
it proved to be our own greyhound bitch smelling the hot air.

Bou Keta gave some account of himself