MR horneman's travels, 419 
Buonaparte, who no sooner learned the situation and 
destination of Horneman, than he sent for him, 
supplied him with passports, and made liberal of- 
fers of money, or whatever else might be necessary 
for his progress. 
Horneman set out with the caravan, on the 5th 
of September 1799, from the neighbourhood of 
Cairo, and on the 8th entered the Libyan desert. 
In this journey, the Arabs travelled the whole 
day, without stopping either for rest or for meals. 
In the evening they halted, made asmall hole in 
the sand, and, having collected some wood, kindled 
a fire to cook their victuals. These consisted 
chiefly of flour, kouskous, onions, mutton suet, and 
oil or butter, which are boiled together, and made 
into different species of soups or puddings. Each 
cooked his own victuals, and Horneman soon found, 
that, by employing the services of another, he ex- 
posed himself to contempt or suspicion ; he follow- 
ed, therefore, the example of the rest. 
The surface of the sandy waste over which they 
travelled, precisely resembled a shore from which 
the waters have retired after a storm. It was 
covered with innumerable fragments of petrified 
wood, sometimes whole 'trunks of trees, twelve feet 
in circumference, sometimes merely branches and 
twigs, or even pieces of bark. Fragments of masts 
have been supposed to be discovered ; but these are 
conceived to have been merely broken trunks of an 
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