ON THE MARCH. 35 an " illimitable waste of burning sand, with neither rock nor tree whereon to rest the weary eye." But not once the whole time I was out did I see anything answering to that description. Generally speaking, the desert was composed of low, rocky black hills and hard gravel, with occasional dried-up tufts of long grass and low dry scrub of all sorts. Sometimes the ground was so mountainous that we had to dismount and lead our camels, but on emerging on to a " khor " (or dried-up watercourse, one or two miles broad / should call it a plain) the ground was generally hard sand, often gravelly, and always good walking.

On the stony places I really pitied the podgy, softlooking feet of the camels, but they knocked their toes against the sharp stones with the greatest unconcern. I also once had practical experience that their feet are not soft, by a violent kick I received from the hind-leg of a camel, who thought himself insulted by my examining his head-stall in the dark. A camel's hind-legs will reach anywhere over his head, round his chest, and on to his hump ; even when lying down, an evil-disposed animal will shoot D 2