118 
WELLS OF TELIG. 
mentioned. About three miles to the west we saw some 
sand-hills^ covered with granite, the colour of wine-lees ; it is 
very brittle, and appears to lie in strata three or four feet thick. 
We travelled the whole morning in an extensive plain, 
enclosed by these hills ; the soil was very hard, covered 
with rocks and red and black granite, in flaky strata like 
slate. About eight in the morning, after climbing a high 
hill, we descended into a sort of basin formed by hills of 
red granite ; the chain extends from east to west ; the 
highest point that we passed over was three or four hundred 
feet high. In this valley, the soil of which is composed of 
coarse yellow sand, are the wells of Telig. We found these 
much wished-for wells filled with sand ; which the Moors 
immediately fell to work to clear out; the poor camels 
which had already become unmanageable, from knowing that 
* they were near water, were then permitted to drink : when 
they were driven away by the whip, they ran off to a little 
distance, and came crowding again round the well, rumi- 
nating, and laying their heads on the damp sand which had 
been thrown out of it. The first water we drew up was 
very black and muddy ; but, in spite of the sand which it 
contained, the camels fought for it with fury. These wells, 
which afford plenty of brackish water, are not more than 
three or four feet deep. 
When the water was fit to drink, I went and thrust my 
head in amongst the camels to drink with them; a Moor 
permitted me to drink out of his leather bucket, for we had 
not stopped to unpack calabashes, which were our usual 
drinking vessels. To the east of these wells, where the 
ground is lowest, we saw the ruins of some houses built of 
bricks of white clay ; they are almost buried in the sand 
which the wind drives over them : further on in the same di- 
rection, there is a great deal of white- veined earth like that 
with which these houses were constructed ; it bears some 
resemblance to lime. 
