The road between the oasis and Assiut is best known as being the last and worst portion of the Derb el Arbaîn, or forty days’ road, which, starting from Darfur, was originally one of the main lines of communication between Egypt and the Sudan. It was along this desert route that great numbers of slaves and large quantities of merchandise, such as ivory, gum, and other products of the Sudan, were imported into Egypt from the south. After passing the last spring in the oasis, caravans had still a little over 200 kilometres to cover before reaching the Nile Valley, with a steep ascent to the plateau at the outset, and thence for a considerable distance over the very worst surface imaginable—loose sand full of sharp angular blocks and fragments of flint and cherty limestone. Little wonder that, overladen and fatigued by the long distance already covered, the camels died in great numbers on this last stretch of road. Along most desert routes the dried bones of camels are of fairly frequent occurrence, but on the Derb el Arbaîn, between Kharga and Assiut, the skeletons of these poor beasts are met with in groups of tens and twenties, and must number hundreds and thousands. In many instances the skeleton still lies undisturbed, in the position assumed by the luckless animal in its death agony, the long neck curved back by muscular contraction so that the skull lies in contact with the spine. When one sees these remains, half buried in the sand, the bones bleached snow-white by a pitiless sun, with still adhering fragments of skin and muscle dried hard as adamant, one cannot but feel pity for those patient ‘ships of the desert,’ wrecked almost within sight of port. Cailliaud, in 1817, observed the arrival at Assiut of a large caravan from Darfur, consisting of 16,000 individuals. It included 6,000 slaves—men, women, and children. He remarks: “They had been two months travelling in the deserts, in the most intense heat of the year; meagre, exhausted, and the aspect of death on their countenances, the spectacle strongly excited compassion.”