Although we became accustomed to the desolate appearance of this district by degrees, we counted eagerly the days and hours that brought us nearer the confines of Fezzan.  Every night’s incidents were the same.  On we went, nodding drowsily on our camels, sometimes dropping off into a sound sleep, variegated by a snatch of pleasant dreams.  But these indulgences are dangerous.  I was more than once on the point of falling off.  By day, few objects of interest presented themselves:  linnets and finches fluttered here and there upon the rare bushes, whilst swallows joined the caravan, and skimmed round and round for hours among the camels, almost brushing the faces of the drivers.  Lizards glanced and snakes writhed across the path.  We started three wadan or mouflon, churlish animals, fond of such solitudes.  As to the birds, our people say they do not drink in winter, and in summer leave the Hamadah altogether.  Four-fifths of the surface were utterly barren.  Little mounds marked the graves of children, slaves who had perished on the way from inner Africa.  The mirage was common, but rarely pretty.  Sometimes ridges of low mountains seemed raised on the level plain, probably reflected from the cliffs that edge the plateau.  The scattered herbage also assumed regular forms—­squares, ovals, circles.  Now and then it seemed as if vast ruins were ahead, but as we drew nigh these dwindled into little desert-mosques, formed of half-circles of stones, now turned to the east, now to the west.  Here the faithful who may be obliged to traverse these dreary regions stop to offer up their simple prayer to the Almighty Allah, to whom, they say, the dreadful Hamadah belongs.

The extent of this plateau from north to south, varying in our route from S.E. to S.W., is about 156 miles, or six long and seven short days’ journey.  Sometimes our camels went at the pace of three miles, but nearly always of two and a-half miles in the hour.  It is almost impossible to make the traverse in less than fifty-six or sixty hours.  The camels may continue on night and day, but it will always require so much time to make the weary journey, which is considered the greatest exploit of Saharan travelling in this portion of Northern Africa.

On the road to Tuat from Algeria, or to Ghadamez from Tunis and Tripoli, or to Fezzan from Bonjem or Benioleed, there is no traverse of six days comparable in difficulty to that which we have just accomplished.  There is said to be none other like it on the road to Soudan, except a tremendous desert between Ghat and Aheer.  However, we must not trouble ourselves about this as yet.