ed at it
whenever one slackened the head-rope.

We traversed the dreary plain, marked every few yards by the bleached
bones of camels fallen by the way; the only living thing met with for
two days being a snake of the cobra type trailing across our path. The
evening of the second day we camped in a long wadi, or shallow valley,
full of mimosa trees, where our camels were hobbled and allowed to
graze. They delighted in nibbling the young branches of these prickly
acacias, which carry thorns at least an inch in length, that serve
excellently well for toothpicks. Yet camels seem to rejoice in
browsing off these trees, and chew up their thorns without blinking.
This I can partly understand, for the camel's usual diet of dry,
coarse grass must become rather insipid, and as we sometimes take
"sauce piquante" with our cold dishes, so he tickles his palate with
one inch thorns.

Climbing ridge after ridge of the dunes, we at last saw stretching
before us in the moonlight the valley of Obak, an extensive wadi of
mimosa and sunt trees. Our guides halted on a smooth stretch of sand,
and I wondered why we were not resting by the wells. Near were three
native women squatting round a dark object that looked to me, in the
faint light of the moon, like a tray. I walked up to them, thinking
they might have some grain upon it for sale, but found to my surprise
that it was a hole in the sand, and I realized at once that this must
be a well. One of the women was manipulating a leather bucket at the
end of a rope, which after a considerable time she began hauling up to
the surface. It was about half full of thick, muddy water. Further on
along the wadi I now noticed other groups of natives squatting on the
sand doing sentinel over the primitive wells. I never came across a
more slovenly method of getting water. The mouths of the holes were
not banked or protected; a rain storm or sand drift at any moment
might have blocked them for a considerable period.

Not being able to get water for the camels was a serious matter, as
our animals were not of the strongest, nor had they been recently
trained for a long journey without water. This was the evening of the
third day from Berber, and many of the poor brutes were showing signs
of weakness. We resolved, therefore, to hurry on at once to the next
well, that of Ariab; so we left the inhospitable wadi, and started at
three in the morning on our next stretch of fifty-three miles.

These night