While at Gatrone a batch of more than 700 slaves, nearly all women and children, passed through the place. The grown-up men in the drove did not seem to exceed twenty in number. All were in a miserably withered state, and many were panting and dying from fatigue and want. Already they had been driven across a desert between 600 and 700 miles, and had yet to go to Tripoli, nearly 700 miles more. Every step of the journey was to be tramped, and most of them had burdens to bear on their heads, of from fifteen to twenty pounds or more in weight, according to their strength. The slave-masters were very cruel to the wretched creatures, for, if they showed signs of lassitude or fell exhausted on the sand, the whip was applied with unmeasured severity to their naked bodies; and if the horrid scourging failed to move them on, they were abandoned to their fate, perhaps three days from the next well, to perish from raging thirst. The expedition reached Teghery on the 3rd November, and resting for a few days, after collecting dates for the use of the camels, moved on the 7th into the Great Desert. In the first three days no less than 250 skeletons of slaves were passed, and fragments of bones were scattered about in such vast numbers on the route, that one could traverse the wilderness unguided, without much chance of missing the track. At the wells of Meshroo, about two days’ journey from Teghery, the ground had the appearance of an excavated cemetery, or the site of a well-contested battle; and to be free from these sickening relics of mortality, the doctor and his sappers pitched their tents for the night at a distance. The travelling was carried on at the rate of twelve or thirteen hours a-day, without halting, which was equal to a journey of from twenty-five to thirty miles. This was reckoned to be very fair work, as camels usually only go over two miles and a half of ground in an hour. The average heat of the sun ranged from 125° to 130°, and beamed upon the wayfarers with so oppressive an intensity that their substance and their strength were wasted in excessive perspiration. In the evening they halted, spread canvas, and lay down for the night. The two sappers posted themselves in turn as sentries over the caravan, to protect it from injury or surprise. During the night, owing to the state of the atmosphere falling from its fiery day heat to a temperature sometimes as low as 45°, the men suffered from a feeling of extreme cold. In this way the expedition journeyed for sixteen days without seeing a single native. For ten marches of the period they looked in vain for the slightest trace of herbage, but at a Waddy called Ekaba, a not very luxuriant oasis, they found a little coarse grass that afforded an acceptable change to the camels after feeding for ten days upon dry dates. On the 27th November the expedition was at Ashanumra, in the country of the tribes of Tibboo.