Chap. LXXXV. BILMA AND KALA'lA. 
427 
grove, where the dilapidated town of Bilma is situated, 
we ourselves entered a dreary salt-pan, and encamped 
about a mile further on, near a miserable little 
village called KaUla, without the ornament or shade 
of a single tree. Moreover, the ground was so hard, 
that it was only with the greatest difficulty that we 
were able to pitch the tent ; and having no wood 
wherewith to cook a supper, a small hospitable gift 
from our friend Kolo, consisting first in a dish of 
fresh dates, and afterwards in a mess of cooked pud- 
ding, proved very acceptable. The miserable hamlet, 
besides a few hovels, scarcely to be distinguished from 
the ground, contained only the ruins of a mosque, 
which had been turned into a magazine for salt. 
Our stay here became the more disagreeable, as 
towards the morning of the following day, a heavy 
gale arose, against which this open tract offered not 
the slightest protection ; but I amused myself by 
paying a visit to the salt-pits, in the high mounds of 
rubbish, a few hundred yards to the east of our en- 
campment. I was highly interested in the very 
peculiar character which they presented, the pits 
forming small quadrangular basins, of about four or 
five yards in diameter, deeply cut into the rock, where 
all the saltish substance contained in the ground col- 
lects, and is thence obtained, by pouring this water, 
impregnated with salt, into moulds of clay of the 
shape which I have described in my notice of the 
salt trade*, in that part of my journey where I was 
* Vol. T. p. 504. 
