45 
amo^ig tits Arabs ofihs Great African JDesert. 
On leaving the wood, the caravan entered on the sandy di- 
strict already noticed. It was varied by valleys and small san- 
dy hills, and was watered by many running streams a little 
brackish ; although the weather had been long iiot, and very 
little rain had fallen. In about a month they got through 
this sandy district ; and, v/ithout having had any distant view 
of it, arrived on the shores of a vast lahe^or sea. The day was 
extremely clear, and two mountain tops on its opposite shore 
were just visible, almost like clouds on the sky. 
The point at which they arrived was not that which they had 
intended to reach ; for it was an uninhabited country. They 
proceeded, therefore, northward, along the banks of the lake, 
and in the evening arrived at a number of fixed huts,, built of 
canes and bamboos, called El Sharrag, and belonging to the 
Or Ghebets. The surrounding country was of a soft sandy 
soil, not much wooded. There were many low bushes ; and 
near the beach high trees, with tall stems, and bunches of 
leaves at the top, something like a cocoa- tree, but taller. 
From the time of their leaving El Ghiblah, until their arri- 
val at the lake, the route of the caravan was pretty uniformly 
in one direction, except when the intervention of hills or rivers 
caused occasional deviations ; but as soon as these obstacles 
were passed, they resunaed the original direction. 
Scott was unprovided with any means of determining the 
true line of their march, but, judging from the position of the 
sun at his rising, it appears, that at setting out, the line of route 
lay a little to the southward of east, and gradually inclined 
more to the south as they advanced 
They travelled more or less every day, except when .hey 
tarried three days in the wood, to bury those who had been 
killed by the tiger. The first day was, in consequence of this 
occurrence, a day of rest ; the second was employed in bury- 
ing the dead; and the third was occupied in placing stones 
over the graves, to secure them from wild beasts. Some days, 
* Unfortunately there are no more precise data from which this important 
X)oint can be ascertained ; and this mode of estimating by the eye, especially in 
the observations of an ill educated lad sixteen years of age, cannot be considered 
as any thing more than a rough approximation to the true line of route. 
