The track leaves the depression at 134 kilometres, rising over heavy sand; it then continues 3° north of west. The character of the desert has now completely changed, and instead of the smooth undulating gravelly “serir,” its surface is rough and hummocky, being formed of hard bare limestone, cut up into sharp knobs and grooved into furrows by the powerful action of wind-borne sand; it resembles closely the surface of the rough open sea. This type of desert is spoken of as “kharafish” by the Arabs. While the “serir” forms an ideal surface for travelling over, the “kharafish” is the worst imaginable, the innumerable hillocks necessitating incessant small deviations, while the hard rough surface is in some places very troublesome to camels; moreover, an extensive view is out of the question and no tracks are visible on the surface, so that the road is easily lost except where marked by frequent cairns built of loose stones. Occasional patches of blown sand are here met with, and the first well-marked dunes were crossed at 141 kilometres. From here onwards for kilometres the whole area was more or less sandy with occasional narrow well-marked ridges or dunes, running almost due north and south, and varying in breadth from that of a single line to a number of parallel ridges side by side half a kilometre broad. The largest dune of this group at 146½ kilometres is known as Ghard el Shubbab. The steepest sides are those facing west where the angle may reach 30°. At the particular locality crossed by this road the sand area is very easily crossed, a circuitous route being followed in order to take advantage of the flatter dunes with the easiest slopes when crossing the steeper ridges. Probably the road crosses at one of the easiest points. This remarkable line of dunes, known as the Abu Moharik, has its origin in the neighbourhood of the oasis of Mogara and runs southward, almost without a break, across the desert until Kharga is reached, whence with a slight break owing to the broken character of the ground it continues southward within the oasis-depression. The total width of the sand-belt on the road under description is about 6 kilometres. At 153 to 156 kilometres a number of black conical hills, Gar el Hamra, are situate from 1 to 2 kilometres from the road on the south side. One or two more sand-dunes were crossed and then the road, maintaining its direction of 2°-3° north of west, lay over a more or less uneven dark-coloured limestone desert broken up into a number of small hills. At 169 kilometres a broad ridge of sand-dunes was encountered, running 18° west of true north. These light yellow dunes afford a beautiful and remarkable sight, running northwards away to the horizon over a dark brown-coloured desert in an almost perfectly straight line and with a sharply maintained junction-line between the edge of the sand and the desert surface adjoining.