184 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFHICA.

feet. The sides were precipitous and formed of vertical strata, but the crests were agglomerations of loose stones, as if shaken out of some enormous coal-scuttle. The glens and gorges were black as ink ; no speck of any other color relieved the terrible gloom of this singular group of hills. Their aspect was much more than sterile : it was infernal. The name given to them by the guide was Djilet c' Djindee, the meaning of which I could not learn. At their foot I found a few thorny shrubs, the first sign of vegetation since leaving Korosko.

We encamped half an hour before sunset on a gravelly plain, between two spurs of the savage hills, in order that our camels might browse on the shrubs, and they were only too ready to take advantage of the permission. They snapped off the hard, dry twigs, studded with cruel thorns, and devoured them as if their ""tongues were made of cast-iron. We were now in the haunts of the gazelle and the ostrich, but saw nothing of them. Shekh Ali taught me a few words of the Bisharee language, asking for the English words in return, and was greatly delighted when I translated ok-am (camel), into "0 camel!" "Wallah!" said he, "your language is the same as ours." The Bisharee tongue abounds with vowels, and is not unmusical. Many of the substantives commence with o — as omelc, a donkey ; osha, a cow ; ogana, a gazelle. The plural changes o into a, as akam, camels ; amelc, donkeys, &c. The language of the Ababdehs is different from that of the Bisharees, but probably sprang from the same original stock. Lepsius considers that the Kenoos dialect of Nubia is an original African tongue, having no affinity with any of the Shemitic languages.

On the fifth day we left the plain, and entered a cou»try