en. xxr.] Quails and Cuckoos. i^i 



a vague knowledge of the country for some miles 

 farther yet, and a black slave from Beteyen's tent 

 is with us, recommended by Mcshiir to our protec- 

 tion. He, too, knows something of the road. Our 

 way lay up a wady between two well-marked ridges, 

 and at nine we passed a ruined khan on the old 

 Palmyra road, called according to Mohammed, Halbe. 

 The country is covered with scadet poppies, camo- 

 miles white and yellow, irises, and a sort of pink 

 aster, all in the greatest profusion, as if in a flower 

 garden. 



We have stopped for the night in a dry water- 

 course thick with grass, in which quails are calling, 

 and I can hear a cuckoo not far oft', sitting probably 

 in a solitary hetdn tree, the first of the sort we have 

 seen in the Desert. The betiin is a kind of ash, and 

 common enough along the dry river beds of tlie 

 Sahara. Here they call it hiitton. The evening- 

 is oppressively hot. Ghanim has begun singing to 

 his rebab something about the " harh Ihii Shaaldn," 

 the Eoala war. Our march to-day was eighteen 

 miles. 



Mohammed has climbed to the top of the ridge 

 to our left, and has come back with the news that 

 he has seen camp fires in the plain beyond.* 



Ap7il 12. — Another terribly hot morning, but 

 about noon a strong wind sprang up from the north- 

 west, tempering the power of the sun, and it was 

 fortunate, for we had to wait two hours without 



* This must liaye been Ibn Sliaalun returning from his ghazu. 



K 2 



