on throwing it on the fire at night, it burnt with a blue flame, and almost suffocated the people, who beat him heartily for causing this annoyance *.

The tracks left by camels in the clay soil, in wet weather, (which is not very frequent in that country,) guided the caravan through this desert region. They often met other Arab tribes travelling like themselves, but they never pitched their tents near each other. This arose partly from fear, and partly from the scarcity of water and food for their cattle.

After passing through a wood, which they traversed for two days, they again came to a sandy soil. This wood was the boundary between the clayey and sandy districts. During their passage through the forest, they saw several lions, which did not attempt to come near them.

Scott remarked, that beasts of prey seldom attacked a party unless they were first molested; but their flocks were attacked in this wood by a tiger +. The camels can smell this animal at a considerable distance, and its approach is known by their refusing to advance. This occurred in the wood, the men prepared their arms, the tiger approached with little noise, and fell upon the sheep; the people endeavoured to drive him away, and fired at him, on which he suddenly turned on them, killed three, two of whom he struck down at once, and wounded five others. He then seized a sheep, which he carried off with great ease, in his mouth.

In this wood they met with a party who had a tame elephant. These people were of a darker complexion than the tribes of El Ghiblah. They belonged to the tribe of Or Ghêbet, and came from El Sharrag, and said they were going to some town (the name of which Scott did not hear) to fetch corn. They cautioned the Arabs with whom Scott was, to beware of a people called Baurbarras, black savages, who lived in the wood, and had done them much damage. In the wood were date-trees, cocoa-trees, and wild oranges.

The bitter taste perhaps arose from a mixture of Sulphate of magnesia, which occasionally occurs with sulphur; or it might be owing to Sulphate of ammonia.

+ From Scott's description of this animal, it would appear to be the Panther.

On leaving the wood, the caravan entered on the sandy district already noticed. It was varied by valleys and small sandy hills, and was watered by many running streams a little. brackish; although the weather had been long hot, and very little rain had fallen. In about a month they got through this sandy district; and, without having had any distant view of it, arrived on the shores of a vast lake 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 Ghêbets. 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 arrival 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 resumed 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 they 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 burying 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 point 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.

2

when very hot, they stopped at 2 or 3 o'clock for the day. Scott was of opinion, that the distance travelled was generally twenty miles, and seldom less than fifteen miles a-day.

In all this journey, they did not pass through, nor did they see any thing that could be called a town, nor any permanent habitations of any kind, until they reached the lake. They did not pass near, nor did they cross any high mountains. They did not meet with any large river or stream which was not fordable. They frequently met other parties like themselves, who all spoke Arabic, which Scott now began to understand tolerably well; but many of them spoke also another language.

During the journey those who chose rode on the camels; the women and children often did: Scott was permitted to do so sometimes. Scott's occupation was chiefly to attend to his master's sheep and goats, in which he was assisted by one of his master's daughters; and at night he was employed in grinding or bruising barley between two flat stones. The Arabs fared very scantily, and Scott still worse. His feet and legs were blistered by the burning sand: he was cruelly beaten for trifling faults, and if he slept too long in the morning, he was beaten with a cudgel. The whole party were often short of water; and at one time, when travelling over the hard ground near the salt and brimstone mines, they were in great distress, having been six days without any water. Their resource then was the milk of their goats and camels; and they frequently collected the urine of the latter, as a drink in this extremity, or preserved what water was found in the stomach of those that died. The urine of the camel is ocasionally taken as a purgative medicine. It is usually given for three successive mornings, and operates much on the bowels. The Arabs did not take breakfast; they generally had only one meal a day, and that after sunset. It consisted usually of goat's milk and a thick porridge of barley flour; but if they had no corn, they drank the milk of their goats and camels, and ate the flesh of the camel, whether the animal died a natural death, or was killed accidentally or on purpose. They even occasionally devoured the hide of the camel, which is tough and thick. It is first beaten quite thin between two stones, and then it is roasted. A large fire of wood is kindled on the ground, the glowing

embers are mixed with the sand, and the hide, or other animal food, is covered over with the mixture, when it is soon roasted, and devoured by the Arabs, without any nice attention to the particles of sand which may be adhering to it. They also occasionally eat locusts, which are roasted in a similar manner.

At El Sharrag, all the camels, sheep and goats, belonging to the party, with two persons of each family, were left, and a large boat was hired to convey them across the lake. This boat was very long,―was built of a red wood, something like mahogany, -appeared to have no iron about her, and even her rudder was fastened by ropes of straw or grass. Between seventy and eighty of their party embarked in this boat, amongst whom was Scott. The boat was commanded by an Arab of a darker complexion than those with whom Scott had travelled, and manned by six blacks, whom Scott considered to be slaves, from the treatment they experienced from their master; for he observed, that they, as well as other Negroes, who are numerous at El Sharrag, were often beaten by the Arabs. The boat started at sunrise, and was rowed with six oars, until a little before sunset, at a rate (as Scott imagined) of about two miles an hour. The oars were very short and clumsy; the blacks sat two on the same seat, with their faces to the stem, rowing with quick and short strokes, and raising the body at each stroke, not sitting steady, and making a long pull, as English sailors do. They rested half a dozen times through the day, for about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at a time. A little before sunset, a large stone, which served as an anchor, was let down with about twenty fathoms of cable, and the boat remained stationary all night. They weighed anchor again at sunrise, proceeded as before, till sunset, and then again cast anchor. Soon after daybreak on the third day, they again got under weigh, and proceeded until about two o'clock in the afternoon, when they arrived at the opposite shore. Their course was straight for the two mountains already noticed, and they landed at their foot, in a country called El Hezsh.

The lake is named Bahar Tieb*. Judging by the position

According to Scott, "Bahar significs a water on which boats can go," and Tieb or Tee-eb, fresh." The name is therefore the "Fresh Water Lake or

of the rising sun, Scott thinks that the greatest extent of this

Bahar is from N.E. to S.W. When on it, he could not perceive any boundary in those directions; and he was given to understand that it extended very far in both. Its breadth he could not state, except as far as an inference may be drawn from the time they took to cross it, at this, which seemed its narrowest part +. The water during their passage was smooth, with a great deal of weeds floating on its surface. Some had broad green leaves, but none of them looked like sea-weeds. All resembled fresh-water weeds, and abundance of rushes grew near the shore. The water under the weeds was clear, and fresher than that of the country, which was all brackish. When further questioned, Scott stated, that though the water of the Bahar was comparatively fresh, yet it would not be reckoned fresh in this country. The Bahar had no perceptible current; had any such existed, he could not have failed to observe it.. Both nights when the boat was brought to anchor, the bow was as nearly as he can recollect towards the moon, when rising about 10 o'clock; and he remarked that its position did not appear to be changed during the night. The sky was cloudless, the winds were calm, and a very heavy dew fell. The moon was full, two or three days before they crossed the Bahar. The Bahar contained turtles, something like those brought to England from the West Indies, but much smaller: of these Scott killed some, but did not eat them. Fish of different kinds

Sea." For its accordance with the Dibbie or Dark Lake of Park, See Major Rennell's Remarks on this Narrative, which will be printed in next Number.

and this, at the rate of two miles per hour, would indicate fifty-eight miles as the breadth of the Bahar at this point. We may perhaps say, in round numbers, sixty miles.

Rather about 8h or 8h by the moon's age.