234 
TRAVELS IN NORTHERN AFRICA. 
CHAP. V. 
they rose and danced round us, when Besheer most ungallantly 
fired his gun, and rode amongst them as in a slave-hunt, which 
threw them into great confusion, and convinced me that I had 
never in my Ufe seen better runners. 
The music of the Tibboo, as well as of Fezzan, consists chiefly 
of di-ums, which are made of a block of palm-tree hollowed out, and 
having a skin stretched at each end, beaten on one side by a stick, 
and on the other with the hand. (This instrument is called Gongaa 
jJLu). They have a kind of rude bagpipe, called Zuccra, \J>j, and 
smaller drums than the Gongaa, called Dubdaba, tJa^. 
Our road was over sand, with small clumps of young palm 
bushes and Attila scattered at intervals, until two, when we arrived 
at the Httle village of El Bakkhi, and pitched our tent before a 
neat house belonging to the Sheikh, who was a Maraboot. We 
were much delighted at having two large trees of Gurda, some fig- 
trees, vines, and palms, in front of us. 
The water of the well was comparatively good, and the Mara- 
boot' s son, in the absence of his father, was very civil to us. So 
much verdure, though within the compass of half an acre, made 
this place appear to us quite a Paradise ; but on turning again, we 
saw with very different feelings the wide desert, stretching hke an 
immense sea as far as the eye could reach. The women appeared 
here, as at Gatrone, busy in making their baskets. 
The Maraboot's son, a boy of about sixteen years of age (whom the 
Kaid always styled " Sidi Maraboot," particularly when he brought 
any thing to eat), was all attention, and we dined rurally under the 
first shady tree of any size we had yet seen. 
The Gurd is a species of Mimosa, having a yellow flower, and 
small delicate leaves resembling the acacia. It produces a pod, 
also called gurd, which, from its great astringency, is used in the 
