418 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. LXXXV. 
haved quietly and decently, and even brought us 
some camels' milk, which they bartered for small 
looking-glasses. 
Having remained here also the 30th, we started in 
the afternoon of the last of May, and, after a good 
stretch of nearly twenty miles, encamped. We set out 
again after about four hours' rest, when having pro- 
ceeded some six miles, we entered the open sandy 
waste, just beyond a fine group of simsim trees, and 
lialted again, during the heat of the day, after a 
march of about six miles more. I here enjoyed again 
the wide expanse of the open desert, which, notwith- 
standing its monotony, has something very grand 
about it, and is well adapted to impress the human 
mind with the consciousness of its own littleness, 
although, at the present season, it presented itself in 
its most awful character, owing to the intense heat 
Avhich prevailed. 
Having a tedious march before us through the 
dreary desert of Tintiimma, we started for a long 
wearisome night's march, some time before the heat 
had attained its highest degree, only one hour 
after noon, but probably we should have acted wiser 
to have waited till the heat was past, as the poor 
slaves of my fellow-travellers were knocked up before 
the heat came on. Only a short rest of forty 
minutes was granted, at eight o'clock in the even- 
ing, for a cold supper of guinea-corn, when the 
caravan started again to continue its night-march 
over this unbounded sandy waste ; but I, as well as 
my chief servant, being on horseback, I found myself 
