458 Linnccan Society. 



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 Tamarix 

 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 

 so many contradictory statements regarding their botanical name ; 

 indeed to such a degree do the accounts of travellers vary, that one 

 calls them beans, another rice, while again a third party pronounces 

 them to be millet. The " Garfuli mosri," so often mentioned by 

 African travellers, is the Indian corn (Zea Mays), the spikes of which 

 are gathered before they are quite ripe ; and in that state they are 

 toasted and eaten. 



*' To convey a notion of the poor return agriculture yields in this 

 part of the world, I will state that the inhabitants surround each 

 spike of the Gosub and Garfuli abiad with a neatly-made basket, in 

 order to prevent the wild pigeons from picking the seeds. 



" Among the few trees growing here, the finest is a Cornus, called 

 Kurno by the Arabs ; it attains a height of 80 feet, and a diameter 

 of about 3 feet ; the country about Sudan and Bornu is, I am in- 

 formed, its true native land, and the 26th degree of north latitude 

 appears to be its most northern range. A description, and additional 

 information concerning this tree, will be found with the flowering 

 specimens in my herbarium. The Gum Acacia will also be found in 

 my collection ; it enlivens and adorns the most stony sides of the 

 valleys of the Wadi Scherzi and Cherbi. The specimen of the gum 

 is very small; but there was some difficulty in procuring more, as 



