116 
SALT-CARAVAN COLOURS OF DAWN. 
the liobara of Soudan. Footprints of the hares and 
of the gazelle were observed en route. 
By this opportunity we have got a few dates 
from Bilma ; hut they are very poor, some of them 
little better than dried wood. The salt-caravan has 
nothing attractive. The salt is all tied up in small 
bales or bundles, the outward wrapper being matting 
or platting of strips of the leaves of the doom-palm, 
called by the people kabba. Our caravan re- 
sembles the march of a wandering tribe, there 
being camels, sheep, oxen, asses, dogs, with all the 
paraphernalia of tents, cooking utensils, &c. Some 
of the animals are laden, some unladen, playing, 
running, and skipping about. Then come the 
human animals, men, women, and children of every 
age. Our own caravan is mostly composed of the 
household and slaves of En-Noor, with two or three 
strangers. But now all changes to the salt-caravan, 
and we shall probably be soon absorbed in it. 
Yesterday morning I observed the dawn of day, 
and witnessed a degree of redness and red clouds, 
or, more poetically, rosy-tinted clouds, which I never 
before observed in all the Sahara. Probably now 
the sky will change to a colouring more like 
England. Sunset and sunrise in the Sahara are 
essentially different from those of England, the 
colours in the desert being exceedingly light and 
bright ; and often in the summer time, at daybreak, 
there is a full blazing sun in the course of three 
quarters of an hour; so that, that rich colouring of 
