PHYSICAL FEATURES. xli 
journey from Eegenfekl to the oasis was accomplished in twelve marches; but they 
found much difficulty in travelling, having met with a saud-storm and being exposed 
to a cold chilly north wind. Vegetation was noticed only at one spot. On their 
fifth march, at Zittel's Ammonite hill, which marks a depression 250 metres above the 
sea, defined to the north by an escarpment 100 m. high, an example of Ccelopeltis 
monspessulana, several feet in length, was captured lying in a cleft of rock. Nothing 
was found in its stomach except sand, but other animal life had been present, as it is 
stated that the snake fed either on small insects, lizards, mice or jumping mice, and it 
is added that a few plants were present, especially the grass, Aristida plumosa. 
In the Eegenfekl the temperature at 6 A.M. from the 28th January to the 4th February 
varied from 2° to 11°"9 Cent., and at 2 in the afternoon during the same period from 
!l°"4 (after rain) to 20 o- 8 Cent. The rainfall experienced by Rohlfs was, however, quite 
exceptional. When rain does fall in this part of the desert, it is restricted, as a 
rule, to the months of January and February, and it generally assumes the form of 
gentle showers occurring now and again after years of absolute drought. An occasional 
thunderstorm may very rarely occur at other seasons, attended by a few drops of rain. 
The oasis of Khargeh was visited by Poncet on his journey from Assint southwards 
towards Abyssinia in the closing years of the 17th century, and by Browne a century 
later. Drovetti, Consul-General of France in Egypt, also passed through Khargeh on 
his journey to Dongola and Dar-Fur prior to 1818; and Sir Archibald Edmonstone 
and his companions, after they had visited the Dakhel oasis, proceeded to Khargeh by 
the usual route across a southward projection of the Libyan plateau to Ain Amur. In 
June 1818, Cailliaud, after the completion of his observations in the Eastern desert 1 , 
w _ as at Esneh preparing for his journey to the oasis of Khargeh. He started on the 
26th June, and in the latter part of the same year Drovetti again visited the oasis of 
Khargeh and passed on to Dakhel. Since their days these oases have been visited by 
many Europeans, who have published the results of their observations, while others, it 
is to be regretted, have not done so. Towards the end of June, when Cailliaud reached 
the plateau, he suffered severely from a scorching south wind, against the full blast of 
which he traversed an enormous sandy desert, dotted over with little hills. The 
courage and enthusiasm of the young traveller, however, were soon rewarded by a 
change in the wind, which veered round to the cooler north. On the fourth day, he 
passed down a defile and thus began his descent to the depression in which the oasis 
of Khargeh and its minor oases stud the monotonous, barren, yellow plain like green 
islands. Along his route he had noticed neither vegetable nor animal life, but Eohlfs, 
who, many years afterwards, followed the same route, in the month of March, however, 
met with nearly the same plants as those with which he had been familiar on his 
march from Assiut to Farafreh in the month of December. The circumstance that 
1 ' Travels in the Oasis of Tbebes and in the Deserts East and West of the Thebaid, 1815-1818,' see 
Phillips's New Yoy. and Travels, (3) vii. 1822. 
