ny one to touch
him. In his tail seems to be all his power, and so of all the scorpion
host. Yesterday was taken a locust: this destructive insect is not bred
in the desert. In this bare and thirsty region there is nothing for the
young ones to eat, and the old ones likewise would soon perish in the
Sahara. They are bred in the cultivated fields near the desert, or in
the fertile lands of the coast, as in the neighbourhood of Mogador,
where millions of the young have been seen, like so many small green
buds of trees.

Dr. Overweg made an excursion to the Ghat mountains, or rather the
smaller hills or offshoots from the range. He found them sandstone, but
very singularly formed or broken into huge blocks--some like the masses
which I saw on the route from Ghadamez to Ghat, with a very narrow base,
on which they might turn as on a pivot.

_11th._--We stopped here another day. We were to have started in the
afternoon, but the Tuaricks had some visitors come to see them, and
detained us for their own comfort and amusement. I am not sorry for it,
as we have had a tremendous gheblee. All the day I felt it extremely
hot, and so have all the people. I was obliged to lie down on the floor
of my tent nearly all day; but I have so arranged my table that I put my
head under it, which gives additional and most important protection from
the sun. All these little expedients must be resorted to in travelling
over the desert, and may sometimes save a man's life. It is surprising
what protection a piece of cloth or linen, or a piece of board, in
addition to the tent, will give against the intensity of the sun's
fierce rays. The Moors and blacks of the coast seem to suffer as much as
the Europeans.

There are two ways from this wady to Ghat--a difficult, and an easy but
longer one. I and the Germans go, with Hateetah and Shafou, the
difficult one; and we leave the heavy luggage and the caravan to go the
easy route. This, at least, is the arrangement talked of this evening.
The morrow may bring something new.

The Tuaricks who arrived to-day expected a supper: Hateetah sent to the
Germans to find them one; the Germans referred them to Moknee; and we
provided.

We must take care we do not have too many customers of this sort, or we
shall never get up to Aheer with the present stock of provisions.

To call the wind under which we are suffering _gheblee_, is a perfect
misnomer; for the hot wind of to-day and yesterday came directly fro