IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 
287 
THIRD PART OF THE TRAVELS. 
The progress of M. Caillid through the desert has 
also been estimated at two miles an hour, at least as far 
as Tafilet, and that for reasons explained at the beginning. 
The principal interest presented by this part of the route 
consists in the exact information it contains of the wells 
and stations to be met with amidst this ocean of sand. 
Science is indebted to M. Caillie for numerous and cor- 
rect notions of these vast solitudes, which travellers can- 
not confront without consternation. Thus, we knew 
the spot called el-Araouan only by the wells found there, 
as a place at which the caravans usually fill their water- 
skins ; but our traveller informs us that it is an important 
town : seeing it thus surrounded on all sides by the 
deserts, we are the less surprized at the situation of Tim- 
buctoo in the midst of the sands. 
The wells of Telig are remarkable for the vicinity 
of granite mountains, and for the neighbourhood of 
Toudeyni, which, in all the maps, is carried far to the 
west of the line between Timbuctoo and Tafilet. M. 
Caillie's description leaves no room for supposing that 
he is treating of some other place of the same name, 
since this city is well known to be a great mart for 
salt. I pass over in silence the immense banks of moving 
sand, and the rare accidents of the soil, which scarcely 
vary throughout this long tract of road, the dreary unifor- 
