62 
M^- LUCAS'S 
eye, exlilbit in their fcanty and meagre appearance, the marks of 
an ungracious and fullen vegetation. 
On the right or S. E. of their road, at the diilance of about 
twenty miles, the mountains of Guariano and MilTelata rife upon 
the viev/. A fight that recals to the mind of the experienced 
Traveller, and leads him to relate to the flranger, the beauty of 
the vales, the richnefs of the lands, aboundhig in corn and oil, 
and the fierce inhofpitable difpofition of the inhabitants, that 
compels the caravan to turn from their dominions, its dire<Et and 
antient road, and to take its courfe among the defolate hills, and 
dreary waftes of the fandy and barren coaft** 
A requefl 
* Ben Alli, a native of Morocco, who was lately in England, and of whom an 
account is given in the Introdudtion to Chapter IV. relates, that in proceeding from 
Fezzan to Gharien, on his way to Tripoli, he was met by feveral parties of Arabs, 
who were robbers by profeflion, and who rendered the rout fo dangerous, that every 
individual in the caravan was obliged to carry a gun, a brace of piftols, and a yata- 
gan or fabre. He defcribes the country as partially cultivated ; and remarks, that it 
is furnilhed with few fprings, and is wholly deftituteof rivers. 
By his account, the diftance from Fezzan to Gharien is that of a journey of fix- 
teen days. 
He reprefents the rout from Gharien to Tripoli as a fandy defart, and its length 
as that of a feven days journey. 
