ENTERING THE DESERT. 407 towards the point where I expected to meet his current again. The plain was very level, and the road excellent for our camels. In places where there was a slight depression of the soil, a long, slender species of grass grew in thick tufts, affording nourishment to the herds of the wandering Arab tribes. There were also narrow belts of white thorn and a curious shrub, with leaves resembling the jasmine. In two hours we reached a well, where some Kababish were drawing water for their goats and asses. It was about twenty feet deep, and the water was drawn in skins let down with ropes. "We kept on until sunset, when we encamped in an open, gravelly space, surrounded with patches of grass, on which the camels browsed. The hot weather of the past two or three days had called into life a multitude of winged and creeping insects, and they assailed me on all sides.

The next morning, after travelling more than two hours over the plain, we reached a series of low hills, or rather swells of the Desert, covered with black gravel and fragments of porphyritic rock. They appeared to be outlying spurs of a mountain range which we saw to the northwest. From the highest of them we saw before us a long, shallow valley, opening far to the north-east. It was thickly covered with tufts of yellowish-green grass, sprinkled with trees of various kinds. The merchant pointed out a grove in the distance as the location of Bir Abou-leer, the first well on the road. His sharp eye discerned a company of Arabs, who were encamped near it, and who, seeing Achmet and myself in our Turkish dresses, were preparing to fly. He urged his dromedary into a fast trot and rode ahead to reassure them. They were a tall, wild-looking people, very scantily dressed ; the men had long black hair,