Wadey is a term of which I have frequently made use, yet I have given but a slight explanation of. It is a valley in which shrubs grow, or through which the rains form a temporary stream. Near Tripoli the Wadeys are sometimes the courses of impetuous torrents; but in Fezzan, where rain is almost unknown, they are smooth dells, very rarely producing a single plant. A small rift in the mountains, capable of containing only eight or ten camels abreast, is as much a Wadey as a large valley containing a town or towns, and the date trees belonging to such settlements. Gibel, or Mountain, is a term I need not explain; but merely as showing that it is by no means a matter of course that a Desert must be flat, or nearly so, as even in the kingdom of Fezzan, mountains are very numerous. Sahāra, therefore, is only applicable to sandy districts, and the Arabs only use the word Berr بار, or country, as a general term. In no part of the Desert, which I have seen, or of which I could obtain accounts, does it appear that water is found on the surface: hence it seems extraordinary, that wild animals should exist; yet antelopes, buffaloes, and some other animals, are, in different places, very numerous. Rats are frequently found to burrow in plains twenty or thirty miles distant from shrubs, and their food is unknown; no birds being found there, and the small lizards and snakes, as well as the few insects, being too active to be caught by them. In some parts, the only living creature seen for many days is a small insect somewhat resembling a spider, called Naga t’Allah نعقاتالله, or the “She camel of God.” Beetles are also seen where Kafflés rest, or in the vicinity of shrubs; and their curious tracks in the sand are so marked, that I have sometimes traced the same insect for a mile or two as I rode along. Nothing can be more awful than the stillness which prevails, more particularly when the surface is sandy. I have sometimes walked at night from the Kafflé, so as to be beyond the noise made by the camels or horses, and have experienced a sensation I am unable to describe, as I felt the wind blow past me, and heard the sound which my figure caused it to make, by arresting its progress. Near towns, or in places where animals can exist, the slow melancholy cry of the hyæna or jackal is frequently heard during the night, when these animals prowl round the Kafflé.