232 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. LIX. 
all in vain. However, Mamma Yidi having promised 
that a guide should overtake me on the road, I started 
tolerably early the next morning, in order to pursue 
my journey through this unsafe wilderness, being 
anxious not to cause more delay, and thus to increase 
the danger of my situation in consequence of the 
news of my proceedings having spread through the 
neighbourhood ; but instead of making right across 
the country, I was first obliged to retrace my steps 
northwards, to the very place where I had crossed 
the valley two days previously, for, Kalliul being any- 
thing but a place of trade and commerce, all the little 
intercourse which is still going on in this region is 
carried on along the direct road, without touching at 
this place. 
A few hundred yards higher up from this spot, a 
rich source of excellent fresh water gushes out from 
the rocky ground, and forms a large sheet in the 
bottom of the valley, affording a remarkable con- 
trast to the black muddy water which covers the 
remainder of the surface. Having taken in here a 
supply of water, we then passed several other salt- 
hamlets or sile-cholli, and emerging from the valley 
ascended the higher ground, which presented open 
pastures with only a little underwood scattered in 
bushes here and there, principally the g6nda bush 
and the poisonous plant, damank&dda, which I have 
already mentioned repeatedly as forming an orna- 
ment of the landscape, at the same time that it en- 
dangers the life of the camel. 
