h--and, being obstinate
creatures, it is difficult to urge them forward faster than they like.
The doctor would have preferred a horse, but it would have been
necessary to carry barley and water for it, as it cannot live like the
camel without drinking when crossing the desert. The expense, too,
would have been very great.

Their course was nearly due south, directed in the first place towards
the town of Mourzouk, the capital of Fezzan.

Their general rate of marching was at from two to two and a half miles
an hour. The heat was very great. The doctor's Arab servant, who had
gone off to see his family in the neighbourhood, on his return arrived
at the encampment after they had started. He, accordingly, set off to
overtake the caravan. Though he had a skin of goat's milk, yet it
became so hot that he could not drink it; and, as he was obliged to
march the whole of the day without water, he suffered greatly and
arrived in a very exhausted state.

Among the monuments passed was one adorned with rich carving, proving
that these regions, now so poor, must have once supported a population
sufficiently advanced in taste and feeling to admire works of a refined
character. They also found ruins of Christian churches of a later
period.

They were now travelling through a district known as the Hammada--a
high, level, stony region, destitute of wells or pools. Here and there,
however, small green patches of herbage were found, affording a welcome
meal to the camels.

They were accompanied by a little green bird, called the "asfir," which
lives entirely upon the caravans as they pass along, by picking off the
vermin from the feet of the camels.

At a green oasis, El Wueshkeh, where grew a few stunted palm-trees,
their camel-drivers killed a number of a venomous lizard, called
"bu-keshash." At night a cold wind, accompanied by rain, began to blow;
their tent was overturned, and they had much trouble in pitching it
again. The next day a number of truffles were found, which afforded
them some delicious truffle soup.

They met, soon after starting, two caravans--the largest consisting of
fifteen camels laden with ivory. With the latter was a woman sitting
comfortably in a little cage on the camel's back.

Passing through a narrow ravine between gloomy cliffs, they reached a
sandy waste, passing across which they at length arrived at some
crumbling ruins surrounding a well, where they and their camels could
quench t