the Kilgris and Kailouees are in open hostility,
they generally make this the theatre of their battles; the former
carrying off the salt of the latter. This hostility is, like that of
most of the wild tribes, of ancient date. The Kilgris have been driven
from all this part of Asben by the Kailouees. The houses we passed in
ruins are said to have been once occupied by the Kilgris. If so, they
evidently were in former times powerful and opulent, and have since
become relaxed and pusillanimous. At any rate, they have been expelled
by the fiercer and more ferocious Kailouees. The Oulimad also come here
to plunder occasionally. At Gurarek we saw a phenomenon which, after so
much desert, gladdened indeed our eyes. This was a fine sheet of water,
of great extent, covered with a forest of luxurious trees. It was a
genuine Soudan picture, and we gazed at it with delight. I nevertheless
thought of the pestilential exhalations of the stagnant pools further on
in Soudan. The ground holds the water tightly, for wells are sunk near
it of some depth before water is reached. This pool, or lake, dries up
during the heat of summer, as is proved by the existence of wells sunk
in their beds.

The country to-day was extremely pleasant, like some parts of the
undulating county of Essex, after the harvest is gathered. I scarcely
expected to find such reminiscences in Africa, on the frontiers of
Pamerghou. If the vegetation were all in leaf, the scenery would be
quite cheerful and happy-looking. The trees to-day thickened into
forests down some slopes--but there is nothing tropical in all this
verdure; one or two plants, at most, are all that could be considered as
such. Many gazelles glanced on either hand as we proceeded: the
guinea-hen was in great numbers, thirty or forty together, old ones and
chickens. They run very quickly through the forests, and cannot be taken
in the day. At night, however, some are snared. They feed on the
karengia, and get immensely plump. Their flesh is greatly esteemed.
Doves showed themselves in flights; and many beautiful small birds, some
strangers to my eyes. One especially, a little black-and-white fellow,
with an immense bushy tail. Vultures, in company with a variegated crow,
were feeding on a dead camel. This curious crow has a white neck and
breast. What a truly Saharan group is that which I have just noticed.
The vulture feeding on a camel fallen in the desert, towards the end of
an arduous journey!