This course was over sands skirted with date trees, the ground strewed with fragments of calcareous crust, with a vitreous surface from exposure to the weather.  About mid-day, after an exhausting journey from oppressive heat, they arrived at El Hummum, a straggling village, the houses of which were mostly constructed of palm leaves.  They remained until the sun was well down and then proceeded on their course.  The country had the same character.  At eight they arrived at Tessouwa.

The greater number of inhabitants were Turiacks.  They had a warlike appearance, a physiognomy and costume different from the Fezzaners.  More than a dozen muffled-up faces were seated near their tents, with every one’s spear stuck forcibly in the ground before him.  This struck them forcibly, from being very different from that which they had been accustomed to see.  The Arab is always armed in his journey, with his long gun and pistols, but there is something more imposing in the spear, dagger, and broad straight sword.

Their course now lay over an extensive high plain, with a long range of hills, running nearly east and west.  They entered them by a pass, in which were numerous recesses, evidently leading to more extensive wadeys.  This pass led to another, the finest they had yet seen, and the only part approaching to the sublime, which they had beheld in Fezzan.  It was rugged and narrow; its sides high, and overhanging in some places near the end of the pass, the wady Ghrarby opens, with groves of date palms, and high sandy hills.  The change was sudden and striking, and instead of taking away, added to the effect of the pass they were descending.

Having travelled up the valley for about four miles, they halted at a small town, called Kharaik, having passed two in their course.  The number of date trees in the eastern and western division of the valley, is said to be 340,000.  The first division, or wadey Shirgi, extends from near Siba to within a few miles of Thirtiba, the other from the termination of Shirgi to Aubari.

In the evening, they saw some of the preparatory steps for a marriage.  The woman belonged to Kharaik, and the man to the next town.  A band of musicians, accompanied by all the women of the village, with every now and then a volley of musketry, formed the chief part of the procession.  One woman carried a basket on her head, for the purpose of collecting gomah to form a feast, and pay the musicians.  They came from the village of the bridegroom, which was about a mile distant.

The sheik of this town, whose name was Ali, was a good-natured Tibboo, exceedingly poor, but very attentive, and always in good humour.  The place was so poor that they had sometimes to wait half a day before they could get a couple of fowls, or a feed of dates or barley for their horses.  They were in hourly expectation of the arrival of camels from the friends of Hateeta, for the purpose of conveying them to Ghraat;