496 
riley's narrative. 
red in his journey across the desert, to and be- 
yond Tombuctoo. These appeared to Riley so 
curious, that he prevailed upon Sidi Hamet to 
give a regular narration of them, which, with the 
assistance of an interpreter, he took down from 
his diction. The following are the principal 
facts : 
The first journey made by Sidi Hamet to Tom- 
buctoo was with a caravan of three thousand ca- 
mels, and eight hundred men. They proceeded 
along the sea coast till they came to the border of 
the negro territories, when they turned eastward 
to Tombuctoo. The desert crossed during the 
whole of this journey, was described by Sidi Ha- 
met as resembling that over which Riley had tra- 
velled, generally a dead level, sometimes covered 
by moving sand hills. At one place, they travel- 
led for a month without finding a blade of grass ; 
at another, for ten days the ground was as hard as 
the floor of a house. The caravan returned by 
the same route, having suffered no disaster except 
the loss of several hundred camels. 
The next journey was far more eventful. Sidi 
Hamet here joined the great accumulated caravan, 
and went with it in the direct route across the de- 
sert. The caravan consisted of above one thou- 
sand men and four thousand camels, about half of 
which belonged to Sidi Ishem. After travelling 
upwards of a month, they were attacked by the 
