DENHAM AND CLAPPERTON. 135 



selling them in all the markets. About a mile beyond Bilma 

 was a fine spring, spreading around, and forming a little 

 circle of the richest verdure. This was the last vegetable 

 life that the discoverers were to see during a long march 

 of thirteen days. In these wilds, where the constant drift 

 causes hills to rise or disappear in the course of a night, 

 all traces of a road are soon obliterated, and the eye of the 

 traveller is guided only by dark rocks which at certain in- 

 tervals raise their heads amid the sterile waste. Sometimes 

 the sand is formed into hills with perpendicular sides, from 

 twenty to sixty feet high. These the camels are made to 

 slide down ; in which operation they can only be kept steady 

 by the driver hanging with all his weight on the tail, other- 

 wise they would tumble forward, and throw the load over 

 their heads. " Tremendously dreary are these marches ; 

 as far as the eye can reach, billows of sand bound the pros- 

 pect." Whenever the wind was high, volumes of this sub- 

 stance darkened the air, through which it was sometimes 

 impossible to attempt a passage. 



After a fortnight spent in the Desert, the expedition saw 

 symptoms of a return to the region of life. There appeared 

 scattered spots of thin herbage ; little valleys watered by 

 springs were filled with the shrub called suag, on which 

 grew delicate berries ; small herds of gazelles fed in these 

 retreats ; even the droves of hyenas indicated the revival of 

 animal nature. As the travellers advanced, the country im- 

 proved ; at every mile the valleys became more gay and 

 verdant ; and the creeping vines of the colocynth in full 

 bloom, with the red flowers of the kossom, converted many 

 of these spots into a little Arcadia. The freshness of the 

 air, with the melody of the hundred songsters that were 

 perched among the creeping plants, whose flowers diffused 

 an aromatic odour, formed the most delightful contrast to 

 the desolate region through which they had passed. Here 

 again were found Tibboos, of the tribe called Gunda, a more 

 alert and active people than the former ; the men still 

 Uglier, the girls still handsomer and more delicately 

 formed. This sept have about 5000 camels, on whose milk 

 alone they support themselves for half the year, and their 

 horses for the whole year ; the little crop of gussuh and 

 millet being too precious for these animals, which drink 

 camels' milk, sweet or sour, and by this strange diet are 



