274 Linnean Society. [Jan. 17, 



the 15th of October he was to leave that place for Lake Tsad ; but 

 previously he addressed, along with his official dispatches, various 

 letters to his friends in Europe, treating of different branches of 

 science ; and among these one to Dr. Seemann, dated " Mourzouk, 

 October 8th, 1853," giving some account of the botanical features 

 of the region between Tripoli and Mourzouk, from which the fol- 

 io v/ing extracts are taken : — 



"There will shortly arrive at the Foreign Office in London 

 a box containing amongst other things a collection of dried plants 

 addressed to Mr. Robert Brown. Tlj^ following will serve as 

 a commentary on that collection ; and you will greatly oblige 

 me by communicating it to that savant, and making known those 

 parts which you consider fit for publication. The plants were 

 chiefly collected in Fezzan, except a few on the coast of North 

 Africa ; for I did not like to fill the paper I am able to carry with 

 well-known things ; and, moreover, the numerous preparations for 

 my journey left but little time for botanical pursuits during my stay 

 at Tripoli. I was in hopes of making a rich harvest in the great 

 valleys through which my route lay, about the 30th degree of north 

 latitude ; but, contrary to expectation, all vegetation was dried up 

 with the exception of a Ruta, which was to be met with in situations 

 less exposed to the scorching rays of the African sun ; still, high 

 bunches of withered Grasses, and fields covered with Artemisias and 

 Thymus, gave evidence of what I might have collected if I had come 

 three months earlier. The more I advanced towards the south, the 

 more naked became the country, until at last, about Fezzan, nearly 

 every vestige of wild plants had disappeared, save a shrubby Tamaris 

 and a spinose Papilionacea, called Agul by the Arabs, and used as 

 fodder for the camels ; and the eye perceived, for days in succession, 

 nothing but date palms, under which the drifting sand of the desert, 

 the bane of vegetation, had accumulated to a considerable height, as 

 if attempting to bury even these trees under its deadly mantle. In 

 the gardens of the neighbourhood of Mourzouk the inhabitants cul- 

 tivate with great care several kinds of grain and culinary vegetables. 

 The seeds are sown in decomposed manure, with which the hard 

 salty soil has previously been covered about 2 inches high. To irri- 

 gate a garden of about 100 square yards, one man has to work twelve 

 hours, a labour for which he gets a fourth of the produce of the 

 piece of ground he attends. During winter, barley and wheat are 

 grown ; during the summer, Gosub and Garfuli ; of the latter two I 

 have transmitted specimens, because they furnish the chief portion 

 of the food of the inhabitants of the Sahara, and because there are 



