ps.

Being obliged to postpone their departure for ten days, in
consequence of the indisposition of Hateeta, Dr. Oudney determined in
the mean time to visit Wady Shiati, whilst Mr. Hillman was sent back
to Mourzouk, to send down supplies, and to take charge of the
property. They arranged about the fare for their camels, and made
every preparation for their immediate departure. Before, however,
they could set out, a guide for the sands was necessary; and for that
purpose they engaged an old Targee, who professed to know every part
of the track. They travelled by moonlight, over a sandy soil, with
numerous tufts of grass, and mound hillocks covered with shrubs, the
surface in many places hard and crusty, from saline incrustations.
The old men told them, that the mounds of earth were formed by water,
as the wadey, at the times of great rains, was covered with water.

At daylight they resumed their journey, and a little after sunrise
entered among the sand-hills, which were here two or three hundred
feet high. The ascent and descent of these proved very fatiguing to
both their camels and themselves. The precipitous sides obliged them
often to make a circuitous route, and rendered it necessary to form
with their hands a track, by which the camels might ascend. Beyond
this boundary there was an extensive sandy plain, with here and there
tufts of grass.

In the afternoon, their track was on the same plain; and near sunset
they began ascending high sand-hills, one appearing as if heaped upon
the other. The guide ran before, to endeavour to find out the easiest
track, with all the agility of a boy. The presence of nothing but
deep sandy valleys and high sand-hills strikes the mind most
forcibly. There is something of the sublime mixed with the
melancholy; who can contemplate without admiration masses of loose
sand, fully four hundred feet high, ready to be tossed about by every
breeze, and not shudder with horror at the idea of the unfortunate
traveller being entombed in a moment by one of those fatal blasts,
which sometimes occur. They halted for the night on the top of one of
these sand-hills.

For three or four days their course still lay among the sand-hills;
their guide, whom they now styled Mahomet Ben Kami, or son of the
sand, was almost always on before, endeavouring to find out the best
way. They could detect in the sand numerous footmarks of the jackal
and the fox, and here and there a solitary antelope. In some o