Tuaricks, and do very well. I expected to find the water
of Falezlez most unpalatable. This, indeed, is its reputation; but we
were all agreeably deceived, and the salt taste was scarcely
perceptible.

About ten in the morning, on the 5th, a solitary white camel, with a
rider, was reported as trotting rapidly over the hills to the east. The
circumstance created some excitement. It was Mohammed Wataitee, son of
Shafou, coming riding like the monarch of the desert, as he is, upon his
fine maharee. He had been travelling three days and three nights
consecutively; and however eager we were to hear his opinion of the
dangers that threatened us, it was necessary to allow him to spend the
whole day in repose.

When we could get speech of the traveller, he talked boastfully of the
value of his protection, and assured us that we had really nothing to
fear. He had heard, or would acknowledge to have heard, no rumours of
the hostile intentions of his father's cousin; only, he observed, "He is
an old man," with a gesture that implied wilfulness. He would have us
believe that this terrible enemy who has been pursuing us--at least in
our imagination--is nothing but a testy old gentleman, who says these
sort of things in a fanciful way just to express his power.

_6th._--We were off soon after sunrise, and made a long day of twelve
hours. The Kailouees were half an hour more performing the same
distance. They started first, and we travel a little faster than they.
Scarcely a blade of herbage cheered our sight to day. A sandy, gravelly
hamadah, with a few rocks and sand-hills here and there,--such is the
nature of the country. The rocks now assume a conic form, _ke ras
suker_, like a sugar-loaf, as the people say. Our course was south-west,
and so it will continue to be, nearly as far as Esalan, I was amused by
an observation of Dr. Overweg; he said, "I now understand the system of
these people" (Saharan travellers). "It is to travel as much as possible
without labour--to do all that is necessary, but nothing more. When we
left Tripoli, instead of reposing immediately at the camping-ground of
the caravan, everybody was running about to climb the hills and rocks;
but now we all fall down to rest as soon as we have halted." The Doctor
speaks of himself and Barth, certainly not of me; for I always rested as
much as possible with the people.

My old broken white umbrella attracts some attention amongst the
Kailouees. They all make a t