The two last nights we have kept watch, and only slept with our hands upon our arms, robbers being, we were told, in this neighborhood, who had lately pillaged some caravans.  We were not, however, molested.  The desert, on the border of the river hereabouts, abounds with doum trees, which are inhabited by great numbers of monkeys.  Its fruit furnishes their food.  This fruit consists in a large nut, on the outside covered with a brown substance almost exactly resembling burned gingerbread.  It is, however, so hard that no other teeth and jaws, except those of a monkey or an Arab, are well capable of biting it.  About one hour’s march below our present position is an encampment of Bedouins and the tomb of a Marabout.  The people of the country and the caravans had piled his grave with camels’ and asses saddles, probably intended as offerings to interest his good offices in the other world.

At about four hours after the noon of the 8th, we quitted the banks of the Nile, and turned into the desert, carrying as much water as we well could, myself taking four water-skins for myself, Khalil Aga, and a black slave of mine.  We marched till about an hour before midnight, when we halted for an hour to breathe the camels and to eat a morsel of bread, after which we continued our way till nearly day-break, when one of the Pasha’s horses falling down and refusing to rise, it was necessary to wait till the animal had taken a little rest.  We threw ourselves upon the sand, and slept profoundly for two hours, when we were roused to continue our journey.  We proceeded till about two hours before noon, when we halted in a low sandy plain, sprinkled here and there with thorny bushes.  These bushes afforded food for the camels, and a miserable shelter from the sun for ourselves.  We shoved embodies under them as closely to their roots as the thorns would admit, to sleep as well sheltered as possible from the burning rays of the vertical sun.  But sound sleep in this condition was impossible, as every half-hour the sun advancing in his course contracted or changed the shadow of the bush, and obliged us to change our position; as to sleep in his rays in this climate is not only almost impossible but dangerous, it almost infallibly producing a fever of the brain.

The country we traversed this first day’s journey is a level plain of sand and gravel, with scattered mountains of black granite here and there in view, where no sound is heard but the rush of the wind.  The weather was cool enough during the day, and coldish in the night.[74] In the afternoon we again set forward, proceeding and halting as yesterday, viz. once for an hour about two hours before midnight, and once again a little before day-break for an hour and a half.  The desert continued to exhibit the same aspect as before till about midnight, when we quitted the plains to enter among gloomy defiles, winding between mountains of black granite.  We passed one chain, and at a little beyond the entrance of another, lying